Skiing accident revealed colon cancer that’s spread to my brain… Now I have just a 13% chance of survival
When Liz Healy crosses the finish line at the TCS New York City Marathon, she’s holding on to every moment, fully aware it could be the last time she runs.
In 2022, the management consultant’s life ‘changed in a heartbeat’ when she got into a skiing accident and broke her sacrum, the bone at the base of the spine that connects the pelvis to the lower back.
As she underwent imaging, doctors discovered a tumor on her kidney. A few weeks later, additional tests revealed stage four colorectal cancer that had spread to her liver and lymph nodes. She had just a 13 percent chance of surviving another five years.
Before she knew it, the mother-of-three was being prepped for a 10-hour emergency operation, during which doctors removed 30 percent of her colon and a portion of her liver. They also later took out half of her kidney.
Now, at 49 years old, Healy’s cancer has spread to her lungs, bones and brain. But even amid radiation treatments, she will be at the starting line on Sunday.
‘My journey is getting tougher by the day, it seems at times. But I’m just grateful for the gift of each day,’ the native New Yorker told the Daily Mail.
‘You’re faced with [the choice] of, I can prepare to die, or I can fight like hell to live, so my philosophy has been to fight like hell to live and do things to make my body and mind stronger in this battle.’
Healy will be running the marathon as part of Team Check Your Colon, a subset of Fred’s Team out of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) in New York City. Fred’s Team is named for Fred Lebow, a co-founder of the New York City Marathon and brain cancer patient at MSK who died from the disease in 1994.
Liz Healy, pictured here, was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and stage two kidney cancer in 2022 after imaging following a skiing accident
Now fighting stage four cancer that has spread to her bones and brain, Healy (second from the left) is running the TCS New York City Marathon and raising money for colorectal cancer research. She is pictured here at a previous NYC Marathon with several members of Fred’s Team, part of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Team Check Your Colon, which includes several members of Healy’s care team, has raised almost $155,000 so far this year to fund research for colorectal cancer, which is skyrocketing among young, otherwise people like Healy.
Over the past two decades, the rate of colorectal cancer in people under 50 rose from 8.6 cases per 100,000 people in 1999 to 13 cases per 100,000 people in 2018.
Colorectal cancer diagnoses in 20- to 34-year-olds are also estimated to increase by 90 percent between 2010 and 2030, and rates for teenagers have surged 500 percent since the early 2000s.
Lifestyle factors like diet, lack of exercise and a sedentary life have all been blamed, though these causes fail to explain why physically fit people like Healy have increasingly been diagnosed with the disease.
Recent evidence has scratched the surface, with an April study suggesting childhood exposure to a toxin released by E. coli bacteria could increase the risk of colorectal cancer by triggering inflammation and altering the balance of the gut microbiome.
But much of the picture is still unclear, leaving patients like Healy without answers. ‘Too many young people are dying right now,’ she added.
Prior to her diagnosis, she had ‘been an athlete all my life’ and had run several marathons, including the New York City Marathon once.
Like many young colon cancer patients, Healy’s symptoms were subtle and could easily be mistaken for more benign conditions like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). She had some bloating and gas leading up to her diagnosis which was ‘not something typical for me’ but didn’t set off alarm bells.
She said: ‘Had I known the symptoms and how important it is to get screened, I would have been more on top of it.’
Healy is pictured above at left with her husband and at right with her youngest daughter before her diagnosis. She had been an athlete her entire life and had no risk factors for either cancer
Since her diagnosis, Healy has done chemotherapy and radiation to her colon, liver, kidney, lungs, bones and brain. While the kidney cancer is controlled, her colon cancer continues to spread.
Once active and jet-setting around the world for work, Healy now has days where she can hardly get off the couch and stand due to fatigue and extreme pain from the cancer in her bones. Talking for just five minutes can leave her gasping for breath.
Yet each year since her diagnosis, Healy has completed all 26.2 miles of the TCS New York City Marathon through a combination of walking and running. She said that due to her disease, she may not get all the way to the finish line this year, but she will get as close as her body allows.
She told the Daily Mail: ‘I may do a mile, I may do five, I may do 26.2. I’ve been very fortunate to get through the 26.2 the last three years.
‘This year’s very different. I’ve been dealt a very different hand in terms of my body. I’m basically doing the best that I can and seeing how I am on the day of the race. There are a lot of things our bodies and minds can get us through that we didn’t think is possible, and that has been absolutely key in getting me through this day.
‘And quite frankly, the energy of the 2million spectators at the TCS New York City Marathon is magical, and I say that’s pulled me through the last three years, and being able to move for a cause has really kept my mind and my body as strong as possible to fight this disease.’
Healy is pictured with her husband and youngest daughter, who she called an ‘invaluable support system.’ She said: ‘One of my fears of this disease is what it will do to my children and my grandchildren’s generation’
Healy was a member of Cornell University’s rowing team and had completed several marathons before being diagnosed with cancer. She is pictured at Cornell with her youngest daughter
Team Check Your Colon is comprised of Healy and 19 other members, including several of her nurses at MSK and their patients, as well as people who have lost loved ones to colorectal cancer and ‘have been touched by this vicious disease and is looking to turn pain into purpose.’
All of the donations made to Team Check Your Colon go toward colorectal cancer research at MSK, which is working to come up with new treatments.
Healy said: ‘I’m at a point in time where I know my life depends on new treatments for colorectal cancer, and the lives of so many people around this world and the lives of, quite frankly, our children and our grandchildren, given how this disease is skyrocketing among younger generations.
‘One of my fears of this disease is what it will do to my children and my grandchildren’s generation.
‘I shudder to think what it will do to those generations in the future, so anything we can do now to change the game completely and find new cures is so badly needed.’
Healy told the Daily Mail that her favorite part of the marathon is running past Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where she receives her treatment
‘I truly believe the TCS New York City Marathon is the best day of the year in the best city,’ Healy, pictured here, told the Daily Mail
As she prepares for the race, Healy told this website that she is most looking forward to running along York Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, home to MSK’s main hospital, where she has spent 50 nights this year due to treatments and related complications.
Along the avenue, nurses, doctors, patients and other staff line the street dressed in orange, the color for Fred’s Team, cheering for Healy and her medical team.
‘I truly believe the TCS New York City Marathon is the best day of the year in the best city,’ Healy said.
‘It brings me to tears to think about the beauty of the day and the best that it truly brings out in every New Yorker that is along those sidelines cheering for us.
‘I appreciate it because it could be my last, and every year there is that fear. But that beauty of that is I make sure that I soak it all in and take the energy from taking on the challenge.’
The TCS New York City Marathon is produced by New York Road Runners.
