Rice staffer’s struggle with cancer defined her life’s work

Cancer survivor makes her mark
Rice staffer’s struggle with cancer defined her life’s work

BY MIKE WILLIAMS
Rice News staff

May Day is usually a happy occasion, a harbinger of spring, but Mayday means there’s trouble ahead.

For Rice’s Emily Page, May Day became Mayday nearly a decade ago. As a child, she and her mom would spend May 1 hanging flowers on neighbors’ doors. Years later, it became the day she learned about her cancer.

As chairwoman of the American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Houston – Texas Medical Center, to be held at Rice University April 17, Page has an incentive to participate that all too many can appreciate.

	JEFF FITLOW
	Emily and Eric Page were college sweethearts when she was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. Now married, Emily is director of Rice’s Wellness Center and chairwoman of the Relay For Life at Rice April 17. Eric works for the American Cancer Society. Both are resident associates of Baker College.
	Emily discusses her introduction to Relay For Life.

Nine years ago she was a senior dance major, weeks away from graduating from Missouri State University, when she fainted during a rehearsal and banged her head. “My mother’s a nurse, and she said, ‘That’s not normal. Go see a doctor,'” recalled Page, now director of the Morton L. Rich Health and Wellness Center at Rice.

Tests revealed Page had an abnormally low white blood cell count, and a bone marrow core sample bore bad news. The diagnosis, which she learned on May 1, 2000, was acute promyelocytic leukemia, a rare and aggressive form of cancer.

“So May Day, for me, is a remembrance of the day my life changed. And at the time it seemed to be changing for the worse.”

The cancer was caught early, and with the support of her family and good medical care in Kansas City, Mo., Page spent the summer of 2000 recovering. “I went through three rounds of chemotherapy,” she recalled. “I was in remission within a month of the diagnosis, but they continued treatment just to make sure.

“I did all the stuff that most people do – lost all my hair, lost about 25 pounds and came out on the other side definitely changed, but I think for the better,” she said. “For most people at 22, you’re ready to start your life and you feel invincible. You still believe you can do anything. It’s not that I don’t think that now, but I’m much more appreciative of what I have.”

Relay for Life
Show your support in the fight against cancer by participating in the American Cancer Society’s national event In Her Words
Emily Page discusses her involvment with the American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Houston – Texas Medical Center Page and her husband, Eric, who live at Rice as resident associates at Baker College, will be at the university’s Track and Field Stadium for the nightlong event. The fundraiser for cancer research will begin at 7 p.m. and last through dawn.

Teams of participants are raising money and will walk the track to help put an end to the disease, and some will take the fight a step further by enrolling in the third Cancer Prevention Study (CPS-3), the latest iteration in a decades-long endeavor that has, among other accomplishments, supplied the first definitive link between cancer and smoking.

Anyone between 30 and 65 who has no personal history of cancer, whether they take part in the Relay For Life or not, may join the anticipated 500,000 participants nationwide who will help the American Cancer Society study the lifestyle, behavioral, environmental and genetic factors that cause or prevent cancer. The goal is to eliminate cancer as a major health problem for this and future generations.

Those who wish to participate in CPS-3 may sign up at Rice from 7 to 11 p.m. at the Relay For Life or register in advance at http://cic.rice.edu/cps3. Once they are at Relay, enrollment will take about 30 minutes and will involve completing a brief survey, signing an informed consent, providing a waist measurement and donating a small blood sample. Participants will make a long-term commitment to complete periodic follow-up questionnaires.

Page’s own connection with Relay For Life is strong and personal. A neighbor convinced her parents to take part in a Kansas City Relay For Life, which took place while she was in the hospital for her second round of chemotherapy. When a sudden, strong downpour cleared the track, Page’s mother kept walking.

“She felt if she left the track, I wouldn’t survive,” said Page. “My mother’s very dramatic, but there’s something to be said for this notion that Relay is hard. The idea of walking a track, even if you’re taking turns, and doing it all night long – it’s hard. But it’s a way to understand what it’s like for somebody going through cancer.”

For information about forming teams or sponsoring participants at the Relay For Life of Houston – Texas Medical Center, visit www.relayforlife.org/houstonmedicalcentertx or e-mail RelayTMC@gmail.com.

Comprehensive information about CPS-3 is available at www.cancer.org/cps3 or by calling 1-888-604-5888.