• Running the Right Way - PhillyFIT Magazine

PhysicallyFITSHINE LIKE ADIAMOND!By Mary NearpassSome of the most mundane moments we live become life-alteringones we’ll never forget.“What happens when a mascara-fixated, vodka-tasting, chocoholic,handbag-fanatic, fashionista, big-city, single woman in herforties, who’s dated everyone in the tri-state area finds a smalllump in her breast?” That’s the question that makes for the followingpowerful yet poignant memoir.When Randi Rentz’s, a beautiful, vital, Master’s-trained, specialeducation teacher father passed away, she found herself in hisattic a few weeks later cleaning up his belongings, which was thebeginning of an unforgettable journey that happened four yearsago.“I was in my father’s attic, pushing, pulling, and throwing thejunk away he accumulated over the forty years he lived in mychildhood home”, she says. “I was going through his personaleffects, bent for several hours. I kept getting a sharp, shootingpain under my breast like someone was slicing me with ascalpel.”Randi thought it might have something to do with her back, soshe went to her chiropractor. As she was lying on her stomachgetting adjusted, her breast really hurt, which was very unusual.She knew something wasn’t right, so she called her doctor andasked for her mammogram to be moved to a closer date.From there, she had tests, ultrasounds, even a visit to a surgeon tosee if he could detect what was wrong. Nine and a half weeksafter her father passed, Randi received the news.Knowing is Just the Beginning“I was in my car driving at 3:12 p.m. on a sunny day on April30th, 2008, when my surgeon called, and asked me to call himonce I got home. I insisted on having the conversation right thereand then. He asked me to pull over because he didn’t like todeliver good or bad news over the phone as people were driving.I pulled over. He said he got the pathology report back, and in18 I PhillyFITMay/June I 267-767-4205 I www.phillyfit.comreading it, saw that the cells were conducive to ductal carcinoma.He said, ‘You have breast cancer but you’ll be fine.’ And I wassilent.”“I was hearing static, getting a little dizzy. I was shocked,” shesays. I remember thinking, how can ‘breast cancer’ and ‘you’ll befine’ be in the same sentence? Her surgeon asked her to make anappointment for the following day, and she did. After she hungup, Randi called her best friend, Sharon.“She got me through the loss of my father,” Randi says of herbest friend. “She was my motivator during that infamous call andshe met me the next day at the doctor’s office. We each came upwith a list of our own, separate questions. I wasn’t sure if I wouldbe able to comprehend any kind of medical terminology, givenmy state of mind, so I wanted another set of ears.”It was a dismal day, Randi recalls. She was looking out the windowwhile she sat in the doctor’s office. It took her some time toassimilate the conversation her best friend and doctor were having.“I wasn’t hearing anything except the voice in my headshrieking, “Breast cancer, really? Me? I was finally able to tuneinto the conversation when he began illustrating my breast canceron a notepad, while discussing several surgical options,” she says.The option Randi chose was a lumpectomy, a surgical procedurewhere just the tumor is removed which is relatively non-invasive.“I woke up and remember the nurse was standing over me,”Randi says. “She had good news: my lymph nodes were clean.That was the best news of my life!”Randi had stage one cancer, but a grade three tumor; this meansthat the tumor was growing rapidly. Although this was relativelygood news, Randi wasn’t in the clear just yet, but she had thesupport of amazing friends along the way.“I remember waking up in my hospital room, and seeing my bestfriend, Sharon, sitting there, with magazines and food,” she says.“I also had friends visit me throughout my hospital stay, cracking