When she was first diagnosed, Kathy Thomas had stage I invasive breast cancer in a tumor measuring 2 centimeters across, but the cancer did not spread to other parts of her body.

However in 2008, Kathy Thomas, a Farmington Hills, Mich. resident and mother of three, was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer. The cancer had spread to her bones and lungs.

“(Having cancer is) just living with chronic pain,” Kathy Thomas said. “Due to so many sores in my spine and ribs, I had to stop doing any kind of fun sports because of the risk of falling and breaking a bone.”

Kathy Thomas, her husband and two daughters who attend MSU — Samantha Thomas and marketing freshman Amy Thomas — were among 45 survivors and caregivers to walk the survivor’s lap during the 2012 Relay For Life at Munn field Friday evening. The all-night event had several different forms of entertainment, such as musicians and karaoke. Several groups also had fundraising opportunities of their own, selling baked goods, apple cider and other goodies to help raise money for cancer research and awareness.

The survivors and their caregivers walked a lap around the outside of the tents and in front of more than 1,900 total participants from 114 groups, said communication senior Kelly Knupfer, president of Spartans Fighting Cancer, the group organizing this year’s general relay.

And although Relay For Life is Spartan’s Fighting Cancer’s main event in the year, the group’s efforts don’t stop there, Knupfer said.

“This isn’t a one-time thing,” she said. “We’re committed to this year-round.”

Cancer never sleeps
With the help of the MSU general Relay For Life and the MSU greek Relay For Life held in February, MSU ranks in the top-five for the largest college relays in the nation, said Nancy Yaw, an MSU alumna and CEO of the American Cancer Society Great Lakes Division.

The general relay on Friday raised more than $108,000 through donations, and the greek relay raised more than $243,000 — more than $350,000 combined raised at MSU, Knupfer said.

Students stayed up the entire night despite bitter cold and constant wind and rain to help raise the thousands of dollars.

“It’s amazing just seeing all of these students in 40-degree weather (and when it’s) raining,” Yaw said. “They’re smiling, working hard, because they know this is nothing compared to the journey of a cancer patient.”

Relay For Life has been helping raise money for cancer since 1985, when Dr. Gordy Klatt began the event by running and walking around a track in Tacoma, Wash.

As a member of Delta Sigma Pi — a co-ed business fraternity — Samantha Thomas said it was important to her to have friends participate in this year’s relay to show their support for her mom.

“My mom never gets a day off,” she said. “So, it’s nice to see everybody out here and not just helping when it’s easy.”

Despite her mother’s prognosis, Samantha Thomas said her mom always is positive and rarely lets her diagnosis with cancer get her down.

“She doesn’t sit around and (say) like, ‘Oh my gosh, I have cancer,’” Samantha Thomas said. “She’s like, ‘I have cancer, but that doesn’t define me.’”

For political theory senior Don Higgins, who participated in this year’s Relay For Life, the event is a simple way to raise a lot of money for a worthy cause.

“There is no better cause I have ever been affiliated with than Relay For Life,” he said. “All it takes is a couple of people, and that can make all the difference in the world.”

Lights of hope
Among the survivors was MSU alumna Kristen O’Lear, who spoke during the Luminaria Ceremony — a ceremony honoring all the cancer patients who lost their battle with the disease.

“I am living proof of your commitment, and it is a humbling experience,” O’Lear said during her speech, as tears fell down participant’s cheeks.

After having emergency surgery because her right lung collapsed in late 2010, O’Lear, who graduated from MSU in December 2011, said doctors found she had stage III lung cancer.

“It never occurred to me that at the age of 21 I would have to battle cancer,” O’Lear said. “The concept was not tangible to me then, and sometimes it still isn’t tangible to me now.”

After the emergency surgery, O’Lear went to the University of Michigan Medical Center decked out in her MSU gear. O’Lear said the woman at the front desk told her she was brave coming into Michigan territory wearing MSU clothes.

“I told her I didn’t know what was worse, finding out I had cancer or having to come to Ann Arbor for treatment,” O’Lear said with a laugh.

After meeting with a top doctor, who gave her encouraging news, O’Lear returned to the University of Michigan with high hopes. However, she was told she had stage IV Sarcomotoid Carcinoma, a very rare and aggressive form of lung cancer normally found in individuals 65 years and older. The doctor told her only 20 percent of patients who are diagnosed with the disease lived longer than two years, and even if she did live longer than two years, cancer eventually would take ?her life.

“The wind was knocked out of me like I was punched 100 times in the stomach,” O’Lear said. “It was like I could feel my own mortality slipping away.”

After moping and feeling sorry for herself the following weekend, she refused to spend what time she had left crying and not living.

“Who decided I had an expiration date stamped on my ass anyway?” O’Lear said.
Since completing treatment, O’Lear has been on “Say Yes to the Dress,” the cover of Capital Area Women’s LifeStyle Magazine, and she ran the Lansing Half-Marathon.

In two weeks, O’Lear will celebrate her 23rd birthday — a birthday her doctors said she would never see.

“I continue to remain optimistic about my future and cancer has not and will not hold me back,” O’Lear said.

Hospitality business senior Rose Halle is another MSU student battling cancer who attended Relay For Life. Halle has survived skin cancer and now is battling throat cancer, and she said she tries to not let cancer affect her by being more spontaneous and not caring as much about the little things.

She said she continues to fight for a cure for cancer through events such as Friday’s Relay For Life so others won’t have to face the same experiences as she does.

“(A cure) means that no young people would have to have the feeling, ‘This shouldn’t be happening to me,’” Halle said.

Although not everyone at the event was a cancer survivor, many still felt the effects of a cancer diagnosis.

After O’Lear spoke, the sky was filled with participants hands signalling a friend or other family member had been diagnosed with cancer.

Knupfer said she is a good friend of O’Lear’s and kinesiology senior McKayla Hanson — another survivor who spoke during the event — and wanted to have their stories shared with the large crowd at Relay For Life. She said they are only a few of the many people touched by cancer that she’s met since becoming involved with Relay For Life.

“They are the definition of hope and inspiration,” Knupfer said. “They prove that people can beat the odds and fight the disease.”