A RUNNER’S POSITIVE ENERGY
She kept looking forward to power through the ordeal
As a kid, April Lionberger was usually the last to get picked for a team during gym class. But after her diagnosis for breast cancer at 36, she became a runner. She had exercised five days a week, but didn’t run. After being diagnosed with Stage 2 cancer, she met a woman training for a 5K during an exercise class for cancer survivors. “What’s a 5K?” she asked.
A mother of three children under age 6, she took up running. She’d drive from Glastonbury to New Haven for chemo treatments at Yale Cancer Center/Smilow Cancer Hospital on Fridays, run a road race some Saturdays and rest on Sundays. Those 5Ks led to half-marathons, then, as time passed, marathons, triathlons, an Ironman triathlon, trail-running and more. Eventually her oldest son ran alongside her while she pushed her two youngest in a stroller.
“It all happened because of cancer,” she says. “I’ve always been very determined and had that drive to power through things. It wasn’t really any different, except for the fact that I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to see them grow up. Throughout this whole process, I tried to not look back as much as I looked forward.”
Lionberger found the lump in March 2013 but didn’t suspect breast cancer because she’d always been healthy and active. Her only risk factor was having her first child after 30. She gave the lump a couple of weeks to disappear because she was breastfeeding her 9-month-old son. Her OB-GYN assured her it was probably nothing, but sent her for a mammogram just in case.
The technician’s face during her mammogram alerted her something was wrong. When the radiologist told her she suspected breast cancer, Lionberger didn’t cry. She was still processing the news.
Several months of chemo treatment zapped her of energy, but she didn’t want to worry her kids, so she kept to her routine.
“I tried not to let it bother me. I wanted to show my kids that I was fine,” she says. When her husband returned to work on Mondays, “I’d have to get up and go, go, go. That’s what I needed to do, so I did it.”
She told her children that the medicine to make her better was going to cause her to lose her hair, but they were so young, she says, that she doesn’t think they understood at the time.
Following chemo, she had a lumpectomy. Her medical team found no evidence of any remaining tumor, assured her they got clean margins and told her she had a 6 percent chance of recurrence.
Two years after finding the first lump, she felt a lump at the surgery site. This time, she opted for a double mastectomy.
“That was a really easy decision for me. I didn’t want to worry,” she says. “I’m so thrilled with my decision.”
She had defied the odds by getting breast cancer at a young age and being in that small group who had a recurrence; she wanted to do everything she could to reduce her risk.
After the recurrence, she struggled to keep the positive attitude she had through the first round of treatment. Runners are supportive and positive, and she wanted to be around that energy.
“I told my husband, ‘No matter what happens, I want to do a triathlon,’” she says. In the midst of chemo treatments, she completed her scheduled triathlon. One of the last to finish, she says, “I was so thrilled that I did that triathlon.”
Setting goals and working toward them has helped her look forward and stay positive, she says.
“Everyone’s image of someone who has cancer — it’s weakness. I change that in their minds. I get uncomfortable when people say ‘You’re so amazing.’ It’s just what I do now,” she says. She hopes she’s helping others. “I love that people see what I’m doing and push themselves further.”
“Everyone’s image of someone who has cancer — it’s weakness. I change that in their minds.”