May 2010 Reader Athlete – Sarah Perry

By
Sky Barsch Gleiner
Posted May 1st, 2010

Age: 38
Residence: Hyde Park
Family: Husband, Eric; children, Emma, 10; Ada, 6; Barit, 4
Occupation: Farmer, health and wellness products sales, and doula
Primary sport: Running
VS: You’re running the Vermont City Marathon this month. How is your training going?
SP: It’s going well. I’ve been set back a couple weeks with a cold, but overall, I think it’s going well. Eric and I train together. The most important thing to me is that we can run together. He is very inspirational—he can run and run and run, and he never gets tired, so he keeps me going. I was never really a competitive runner until last summer, though I always ran to train. So, when I was Nordic ski racing or Alpine ski racing or mountain biking, I always used running as a tool to train. For me, running works for training for all sports.
VS: You are running to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Can you talk about the role cancer has played in your life?
SP: When I was 27, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. It was discovered on a routine physical exam—I had no other symptoms. I was really healthy and athletic my whole life, especially at that time, in college, and through my 20s. I had follicular carcinoma, which meant that it was not just encapsulated in my thyroid, so they removed my entire thyroid. I’ve been on thyroid replacement therapy since, and I’ve had really good luck with that; not everyone does. I did choose to go to the best hospitals that would offer the surgeries and treatments that I needed. I learned that even someone who lives in rural Vermont can go anywhere he or she wants; cancer clinics don’t turn anyone away. Then Eric got diagnosed with cancer a very short 18 months after I finished treatment. He was diagnosed with advanced stage four testicular cancer—a tumor that was spreading very rapidly, the same kind Lance Armstrong had. We knew what we needed to do.
VS: What happened from there?
SP: We went to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. They basically told us, “You need to start today, or you will be planning his funeral.” So we did. He is an amazing survivor. He never wavered at all. Before Eric was diagnosed they told me I wasn’t going to be able to have children because of the hormones, but we had Emma. After his diagnosis, we had two more children, born naturally. Parents magazine did an amazing article on us.
VS: Was it just coincidence that you both got cancer, or was there a known reason?
SP: They’re both genetically linked, but no one in our family has ever had either of these. The only thing that we did together that might have had something to do with it was we lived in Park City, UT, for a long time, and we lived on top of a silver mine. And when I was a young girl, I used to drink milk all the time, and all milk had rGBH in it, and that has been linked to thyroid cancer in rats. But we absolutely let go of all of that. If we wasted our time and energy on the “why,” we never would have been able to get over it and look for the cure.
VS: How have you stayed a part of the American Cancer Society?
SP: For us, the American Cancer Society was an outlet when we were both sick. The Nordic style Relay for Life was just getting going. I just had to jump on board and become involved in it. I needed something to grab hold of. We feel that we had to start raising money to make people aware of their environment and what they are putting into their bodies. It’s essential for the future, for the people we love, our kids, and the people we don’t even know. Now we are involved with a program called DetermiNation, which is geared toward endurance athletes. We raise money for cancer research.
VS: If someone reading this would like to contribute, how can they do that?
SP: They can go to www.americancancersociety.org/determination. Click on Vermont and then the KeyBank Marathon, and then click donate. You can type in Eric and Sarah Perry. We’re also on Facebook, and we have links on our Facebook page.
VS: How did cancer affect your athleticism, and how did you get to the point of competitiveness again?
SP: From when I was diagnosed until just about a year ago, I had cancer and I had three young kids. My whole frame of mind changed; I got into survival mode. It had been an eight-year span of just being a maintenance athlete. I was not training for any sort of races. I was just raising my family and being as healthy as I could be. What changed me was when I started working with ViSalus Sciences, a health and wellness company. I told myself it was time for me to get my body back; time for me to do what I love, and what makes me a great parent. I need to be inspiration for my kids. So I really jumped on board with ViSalus and started boosting my immune system with great, healthy products.
VS: Will this be your first marathon?
SP: It would have been, but I’m going to do the half; Eric and I are going to split it. Here’s the reasoning behind it: I have a really bad foot, a bad bunion, so bad it needs to be surgically fixed. The best bet for me to run is to not overdo it. So we’ll split it. I’m actually really content with that, and Eric was immediately okay with it, too. I need to stay focused on what all the goals are. I don’t want to push myself too hard and hurt myself. I’m taking the recommendations of the great people at the Fleet Feet shoe store, and I’ve talked with an orthopedist.
VS: Who will run the first leg?
SP: I’m going to run first and Eric’s the strong finisher.
VS: Will your kids be there?
SP: The kids will be there. We have a tremendous amount of support. Our ViSalus team will be there, and we have family coming.
VS: You have a small farm—what do you grow and raise?
SP: We have chickens, rabbits, dogs, cats, turtles. We had three horses, but we don’t have them anymore because we are downsizing. Our house is on the market, and we are moving to southern Vermont. With the farm, we focus on growing our own food, and we really pride ourselves in buying local and supporting local farmers. I grew up that way; my parents are homesteaders. Eric and I have been together 18 years now. I even remember being in Park City and having little planters on our porch and growing what we could.
VS: And you’re a doula too. You’re busy!
SP: I love being a doula. Being a doula is really my passion. I love being in the delivery room or at home and helping the moms and their partners. I have an amazing network of families in my life; I feel like it’s an extended family because of sharing that experience with them. I do that part time now; I am a stay-at-home mom. Eric is a builder and works for himself, so if I need to run out to a birth he can come home and stay with the kids. Now that my kids are a little older, I have hopes that I can jump in a little more. It’s amazing. There are births that have literally changed my life.
—Sky Barsch Gleiner