Local man biking 200 kilometres to honour late wife
Shaneel Pathak and wife Heing Taing knew something wasn’t right. Taing had been suffering severe shoulder pain for more than a year, which had started to spread to her back. And while two doctors told her it was just pain from repetitive strain, she decided to get a private MRI to be sure.
Shortly after, on Dec. 28, 2013, Pathak brought Taing to the hospital because she had shortness of breath. It was there she was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer.
“I knew it was something serious just because things didn’t add up, but shocked for it to be lung cancer,” Pathak said. “I couldn’t understand how my wife — who had run half marathons two months prior to diagnosis — how she could be in that good of shape and be diagnosed was shocking.”
For nearly four years, Taing fought her cancer with various treatments, from targeted drugs to immunotherapy and chemotherapy.
She lost her battle in November 2017 at the age of 41.
On Saturday, Pathak and his three friends will bike 200 kilometres in Taing ’s memory in the Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer. The Ride is in its 10th year and has raised more than $60 million for the Alberta Cancer Foundation.
Pathak’s team has raised nearly $13,000, and Pathak says part of his goal is to get rid of the stigma around lung cancer.
“There are a lot of cancers that have support because there’s empathy for them, but one outlier to that is lung cancer, and the reason is there’s a stigma of smoking associated with it,” he said.
“That was one of the challenges that my wife felt and, myself, even today when I explain that she had lung cancer, I have to reiterate that she was a non-smoker. But anybody with lungs can get lung cancer.”
Throughout her battle, Taing wrote a blog about her journey and healthy living, filling it with recipes and recommending feelgood books. Pathak describes his wife as having a life with cancer, rather than cancer being her life. The pair loved to travel, having visited more than 30 countries together, and ventured to Japan, Iceland and Indonesia while Taing was fighting her cancer.
They spent winters in Victoria to escape the Calgary cold and even bought a dog, Zoey, who Pathak said has been a great comfort to him during his wife’s sickness and since her death.
Pathak describes Taing as having a lot of “spunk” — a strong-minded and strong-willed woman. And though she worked as an optometrist, she also had a knack for art, which can still be seen hanging on the walls of their apartment.
And while Pathak has never biked 200 kilometres before (he’s been training for the past four months), he’s looking forward to honouring his wife while raising money for cancer research.
“I think for her it was important to promote research and awareness, and I think she’d be very proud of me,” he said.