Miles for Mom
follow me on my road to running the NYC Marathon in honor of my Mother’s journey with ovarian cancer
Our Story
In June 2017 my most beloved mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. It was the biggest shock and my worst fear to ever see my mom sick. My mother was the epitome of health, her whole adult life she would speed walk miles every day in our neighborhood and do the elliptical for hours as well. She always cooked the best homemade foods with the freshest and cleanest ingredients. At age 58 to be diagnosed was impossible for us to comprehend. But my mother has always been the strongest and most incredible woman I have ever and will ever know. She took the news of cancer as if someone told her she would need a couple of stitches for a small wound. She simply said “okay when do we start”, when the doctor told her the plan moving forward for surgery and treatment.
From that day I moved back from Virginia to Baltimore to be with my mother. I took her to every doctor appointment, every treatment, every bloodwork, every follow up, and spent every moment with her. After a grueling six+ hour abdominal hysterectomy and six sessions of chemotherapy my mom was cleared in November 2017. It felt like the world was back under my feet again and we could all finally breathe. But my mom would always say, “I think my cancer is tougher because I’m so tough..I made it stronger”, and it came back. Only a few months later on the same day my grandfather, my mother’s father, had a massive stroke and passed away we found out her cancer had returned, this time to her lymph nodes.
We decided to now begin treatments at MD Anderson in Houston, TX. Every few weeks my mom and I would book another flight and fly from Baltimore to Houston, and this went on for several months. My beautifully brave mother tried every option; multiple immunotherapy trials, targeted therapy, and finally a cutting edge T-Cell treatment therapy. During this treatment my mom and I lived in the hospital for over a month, and what she went through is impossible to talk about..she is just my champion and my whole world.
But it never seemed to get better, every time we would get news about how the CA125 levels were still increasing. We returned to Baltimore to continue standard treatment. Throughout this whole period we were also planning my wedding. My mom did everything, while fighting cancer. The wedding was set for April 2019 and my mom kept asking her doctor to just please get her to April. I kept telling her, we’re thinking way past April mama. The wedding weekend was beautiful and perfect, my mom was at her best. She danced all night, she laughed all day, she gave a speech, and she was smiling brighter than I’d ever seen. She was celebrating her life. You would never have known she was having such trouble breathing, let alone even sick.
On May 7th 2019, the love of my life, my best friend, my whole universe passed away. One month after the happiest weekend of our lives. It was extremely sudden, shocking, and terrifying. Life has been unbearably hard and impossible to recognize.
My mom always so badly wanted to help women going through this. She would constantly say to me “I just want to get better so I can talk to women who are going through this and help them and tell them they’ll be okay.” Her biggest desire was to be a survivor only so that she could help everyone else and tell them her story. So it’s my responsibility now, I have to tell my mom’s story and share what she did so other women and the world know that they can be just as brave and strong as the bravest and strongest woman I know. I don’t want to stop until every woman knows the early signs of ovarian cancer and until the world recognizes that not all cancer is pink. I want everyone to know what ovarian cancer took from me, so that it never shatters another family every again.
In February 2020 I was sitting at my desk at work and out of nowhere I had a sudden huge desire to run the NYC marathon. I wanted to do something huge, that felt impossible to me, to push my body to its limits the way my Mom’s body pushed itself every second. I wanted to do the marathon for my Mom and to feel like I had a purpose again, to raise awareness for her and this disease. I looked up the NYC Marathon and first shocked at how difficult it was to get in, getting in through a charity seemed like my best bet. As I scrolled through the options I saw the “Team Teal” charity organization through NOCC (National Ovarian Cancer Coalition). It seemed like everything was falling in place. The organization I had already donated so much time, money, and mileage via their own 5k’s was a charity partner with the TCS NYC Marathon, it was fate. I wrote an application talking about my connection to ovarian cancer, I talked about my angel, I told them that by no means am I a runner and that it will be extremely hard for me. But, I also told them that I would never give up and that if they didn’t want me on their team I would just apply to another charity partner until I found a way in because I was going to do this, I had to do this for her, and I would do anything for her. I clicked the button to submit my application and sat back.
About four minutes later I see a call on my phone from a number I didn’t recognize so I ignored it. A voicemail pops up from that call so I listen to it and my heart began to beat faster than it had in a long time. It was the director of the Team Teal program calling me to tell me that she never makes direct calls just sends emails to participants that are accepted, but when she read my story she had to call me immediately to tell me I had a spot, that I was exactly the person they wanted on their team, and she said she would do whatever it took to get me to that starting line on November 1st 2020. I ran from my desk and went outside to call her back and when she told me I had a spot I cried.
I will be at that starting line in NYC. This will be my first marathon, well actually this will be my first official distance past a 5k, so I wanted to document my journey of building miles and strength both physically and mentally as I embark on this challenge. I will blog about my challenges along the way, the races I sign up on the road to the Marathon, running tips that work for me, etc. I am hopeful to see my progress and hope my Mom’s story and my story can maybe even help someone else get through their own dark days. I’m scared to do this but after seeing what my Mom went through, everything else seems easy. Yes, this will be my first ever marathon, and it will be hard, but cancer is harder.
*Due to COVID, the 2019 NYC Marathon was cancelled. Runners had an option to defer to the 2021, 2022, or 2023 NYC Marathon. My sister and I will be running this marathon together as a part of “Team Teal”, *fingers crossed all goes well*, and we decided to defer to the 2022 Marathon. So I am now running the 51st NYC Marathon which is set to take place on November 6th 2022.
Shireen’s Journey
When my Mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, I recorded her throughout her journey. I knew she was about to do something truly amazing, and I wanted the world, but mostly herself, to see just how spectacular she is. I know her story will inspire so many others to be as brave and as kind as she was every second…to show a love for life and people as often and as loudly as she did. Please click on the video above to watch her beautiful journey. If you would like to donate to our NYC Marathon fund, please click the link below. Every penny goes towards funding research on discovering how to get rid of this silent disease once and for all.