In this article: Exercise and cancer recovery Also this week: America's most energetic couple Mitochondria: Your body's energy engines Online extras: Ask Dr. Tedd Mitchell a health question

HEALTH BRIEFS

Regaining energy lost to illness

A triathlete battles breast cancer to recover and race harder.

By Dennis McCafferty

Fit, active people enjoy a lower risk of illnesses such as cardiovascular disease and cancer -- but they aren't bulletproof.

When a devastating illness does strike a powerhouse of a person, being idle during treatment and recovery can be excruciatingly frustrating. On the eve of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, USA WEEKEND Magazine takes a look at how one athletic woman regained her awesome energy after fighting cancer.

In fact, Cindy Behling, of Georgetown, Texas, is a variation on the Burgesses, the couple on the cover of this magazine (story, page 6): They're all successful, good-hearted people who are trying to squeeze every drop out of life as if it came from a $6,000 magnum of champagne. And like dizzyingly busy people everywhere, Behling always has multiple games in play. At 37, she was an MBA and international finance whiz who remade herself into a restaurateur. A wife and a mother of two. A triathlete who can handle anything -- and then some.

But the news she hears in 1999 nearly floors her.

"I received the biopsy," her doctor tells her on the phone. "There are cancer cells in the tumor. ... This is not a death sentence."

Behling decides to fight cancer the same way she's lived her life: Play the game hard, and play it right.

The doctors have to cut. In fact, within two weeks of the diagnosis, they cut that lump right out. Behling recovers in a hospital and can only hope the drowsy hours away.

Then they tell her it wasn't enough. The whole breast has to go. That's when the soul searching comes in. But, Behling ultimately reasons, you lose a breast to gain a life. She lets the cosmetic surgeon put in a reconstructed breast, in August 1999, at the same time they remove the old one.

Then she's down for the count again. She can't go to her restaurant. She can't pick up her kids from school. She's exhausted, on painkillers, in the hospital for a week. People ask Behling if she ever wonders, "Why me?'' But why would she? Would that mean she'd be fine if someone else got her cancer? That's too self-involved to think about.

There's so much time for thinking. As soon as she's almost back on her feet, it's time for the chemo. Every three to four weeks. They hook up an IV, and for an hour, poison drips into her body to get the cancer. Poison chasing poison, really. The resulting sickness is overpowering. Nausea. Dehydration. Weakness. Behling can't handle it by herself. She simply doesn't have the energy. An extended community of family, friends and neighbors springs forward. Dinners arrive when she's too spent to cook -- regularly scheduled deliveries of honey-baked hams, meatloaves and enchiladas. Her mom and stepfather take care of the kids. The kids make her feel like everything is OK. When Behling starts losing her hair, her youngest son, Nicholas, then 3, looks up and affectionately touches her head.

And her husband, Patrick, makes her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, at a time when she feels like anything but. She is swollen and red. She is losing so much of herself, she jokes, that she feels like a jigsaw puzzle.

This is just a hiccup on the journey of life, Behling reasons. Gradually, she starts getting back into a routine. She begins to exercise, walking just a bit. Then she mixes in some jogging. Then biking. Then swimming. She decides that she'll run a triathlon for her 40th birthday. By the end of training, she's running 5 kilometers, swimming 1 mile and biking 12 miles. In June 2002, she makes it to the finish line with other cancer survivors. There are so many tears, hugs and cheers, it's intoxicating.

By January 2003, there's another small lump. Doctors say cells are left over from the old one. This is good news, in a sense, because it's not considered a new case of cancer. Behling goes through eight weeks of radiation. She has to slow down again, but she battles back. So far, the prognosis is good, and she remains philosophic.

"A lot of people have disabilities that they deal with their entire lives," she says. "This is just my thing to deal with. It's important to look at all the good in your life. When all of these people did all of these things for me, I realized I had so much love surrounding me. I realize now that it was not a hiccup in my life. But the amount of love I saw every day while recovering gave me such a positive attitude. There's so much to live for."

Now she's looking forward to next year. That's when she'll compete in her next triathlon.

For more information about breast cancer, try these sites: www.cancer.org, nabco.org, www.stopbreastcancer.org, www.komen.org
and y-me.org.

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-- Contributing Editor Tedd Mitchell, M.D., member of the President's Council on Physical Fitness & Sports