Battling Stage Four Cancer, Orly Fuerst Runs Six Miles a Day

When doctors told Orly Fuerst she had six months to live, she didn’t believe them for a second. In fact, it wasn’t the first time that Orly had defied doctors’ predictions. Years before, she was told that she would never be able to have children. She beat those odds and had six miracles. “On one hand, you should do everything the doctors say,” Orly said in an exclusive Aish.com interview. “At the same time, when they tell you that you have a certain amount of time to live, you don’t have to listen. That’s up to God.”

Today Orly runs six miles a day and a still runs half marathon every year. She also maintains a full-time job and is simultaneously pursuing her PhD in Holocaust Studies.

Orly had been running half marathons for years. In June, 2022 she began to feel lightheaded while jogging. “I kept getting dizzy. I passed out and my head hit the ground. I started bleeding.” Orly wanted to allow the injury to heal on its own, mostly because she didn’t want the doctors to shave her hair for stitches.

A week later, Orly’s children, unaware of their mother’s fall, flew in from all over the country to surprise her for her 58th birthday. Orly was resting on the couch, feeling exhausted, when the doorbell rang.

“Honey, can you get it?” her husband called out, knowing their kids were waiting on the other side of the door to surprise her.

Orly was very tired but pushed herself up. “I opened the door and saw all six of my children smiling at me. I was overjoyed.”

Throughout her birthday celebration, she wasn’t feeling well, but no one understood why. A close friend finally convinced her to go to the doctor. They discovered that her hemoglobin count was very low. She needed a blood transfusion and had a colonoscopy that revealed a large tumor.

“I had stage four colon cancer. The tumor was so large they couldn’t even perform the colonoscopy. I had no idea that I had been sick.” The cancer had metastasized to Orly’s liver, lungs, and lymph nodes. “I went from the outlook that everything is fine to everything is completely falling apart.”

Orly’s doctors performed a surgery and inserted a colostomy bag. “As grotesque as it sounds, it’s even worse in real life. I didn’t tell anyone I had a colon bag until it was removed a year later.” Doctors also attached a chemo pump and kept monitoring the progress.

“They told me I would have to use the colostomy bag for the rest of my life—which they thought would only be six months. They also told me I would never be able to run again. But I had other plans.”

Run for Your Life

The first few days after the fateful diagnosis were really tough. Orly’s medical condition was overwhelming and it was difficult for her to process.

“The first two days, I laid in bed. Then I figured that if I’m lying around anyways, I may as well lay on the couch and at least be near my family. After a few days, I started to get up and walk around the house a bit. Then I thought, if I’m walking, then I can run.”

With that mindset, Orly started running on the treadmill inside her house because she was embarrassed by her colostomy bag and refused to be seen with it. Her chemotherapy treatments did not stop her from running, either. Chemo causes neuropathy, which prevents Orly from feeling her feet. She has to be extremely cautious when running to ensure her feet make contact with the floor.

While some might say heavy exercise with stage four cancer is a bit extreme, Orly feels that running is saving her health and giving her emotional strength. It provides her with goals to look forward to, other than cancer-related milestones.

“When I’m running, I am not a cancer patient. Just a runner, struggling for breath and aiming for the finish line. When I’m competing, no one knows that I have cancer. This is the one thing cancer does not take away from me.”

Her daughter, Abrielle, adds, “Running helps her maintain her identity when so much of her identity has been stripped.”

Orly and Abrielle are a running duo. They bond over picking out matching shoes and enjoy the challenge of running together.

Orly and Abrielle

“My mom is the fiercest woman that I know. Running is saving her life. She’s running now more than she did before her diagnosis. She has taught me how to be fierce in the face of challenges. She wore a shirt to our ABC interview that said, Hey Cancer: you picked the wrong b*!ch. The doctors told her six months. She said, ‘You picked the wrong woman to mess with!’”

A Running Miracle

After less than a year of running, the tumor in Orly’s lung became negligible. The large tumor in her colon had shrunk enough to allow for surgery, and the doctors were able to permanently remove the colostomy bag.

The surgeons estimated that the surgery would take 18 hours. They finished in six. Since Orly is a runner, her heartbeat was stable throughout the entire procedure and that the operation went more smoothly than anticipated. Her recovery was also easier. “We could tell you are a runner based on your insides,” they noted.

Orly’s running also gives her the emotional energy to pursue other passions, like getting her PhD in Holocaust Studies.

“My mother was a survivor. After the war, she had survivor’s guilt and developed anorexia. She was eighty pounds when she was pregnant with me, and had to take a specific medication that causes infertility in female offspring. That’s why I was told I would never have children.”

Orly says that her greatest source of strength comes from her large family.

“My husband is amazing. When I was first diagnosed, he took it much harder than me and in many ways he still does. He reads every report, every scan. I do not. He hates running, yet has done a few 5Ks with me, just to be supportive. When we thought I would lose my hair, he shaved his. We had always dreamed about a two-story library. After I was given the six-month timeframe to live, I was upset that I would never see this library. So, he had it built.”

Run Harder

Orly and Abrielle realize that running is not for everyone, but they encourage others to spend time doing things they enjoy. Whether it’s running, sewing, or telling jokes, you cannot lose sight of yourself in your battle.

Abrielle adds, “The most important lesson I learned is that joy breaks all boundaries. It is crucial to make space to be happy and not to feel guilty about it.”

Most profoundly, the family has seen the hand of God throughout Orly’s ordeal. Abrielle recounted, “We lived on three different coasts growing up. My parents randomly landed in Texas. It turns out one of the best cancer hospitals in the world happens to be 20 minutes from my parents’ house. She has access to treatments that don’t exist in other countries. For example, a brand new medical biological treatment was created, and it also happens to be catered specifically to her type of cancer.”

Together, Orly and Abrielle are spreading awareness. They created a support group called “KICK CANCER IN THE A*S.” Their goal is to strip the stigma away from the illness, and enable people to openly ask questions and share their stories.

Abrielle also wants to spread awareness about the importance of preventative care.

“I had a colonoscopy when I was only 32 years old. The doctor assertively told me I should not have come. But they found a precancerous polyp. The doctor was eating her words. Had my mother had that procedure done, she would not have ended up with stage four cancer.”

God willing we are beating cancer one step at a time.

When asked how she stays happy in the face of her adversity, Orly responded, “Some days, I’m really not happy. Chemo is very draining, and afterwards I feel a little defeated. You have to really pay attention to that and then push it out of the way. There are times when I try to think, I’m not going to be a cancer patient today. Then I look in the mirror and see that my nails fell off and my hair looks like straw. I pretend, but then it smacks you in the face. Those days are difficult.”

Despite these difficulties, she stays motivated to run.

“I run six miles a day, six days a week. Because I’ve been doing it for so long, it would be more difficult not to do it. I wake up at 4:00 am so I can run before work. I have my coffee, and I go.”

Orly tell herself, It’s hard, but that’s okay. I’m doing it anyway. She loves the quote, “Run hardest when it's hardest to run.”

“On the days that it's hard, that’s when you have to get out there and run. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of procrastination, saying to yourself, not today, I’ll do it tomorrow. Running works for me. Everyone has to do what works for them. It’s an ugly disease. No one knows what you are capable of except you.”

Orly’s ultimate message is, “Don't quit. Whatever it is in life, don’t quit. Don’t blame yourself for the bad days that are going to happen. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”