There will be few people at the starting line of Saturday’s RussVegas half marathon in downtown Russellville with a more personal reason for running than Meg Schwehm.
And when Meg crosses the finish line, one week shy of her 8th birthday, she will see her reason for running.
Meg’s 5-year-old sister, Morgan, who will run the children’s 1-mile race the previous day, will be handing out medals to the race finishers.
The proceeds from the race will benefit Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, one of two hospitals where Morgan received lifesaving treatment for her type of childhood cancer. The race will also benefit River Valley Circle of Friends, an Arkansas Children’s Hospital support group.
For Meg, running has become a passion as she seeks out races where the proceeds benefit charities, especially those dealing with childhood cancer.
She recently ran her first 10K race and, days later, told her parents, Jeremy and Liz Schwehm of Russellville, that she wanted to run in the half marathon, for which Jeremy had already signed up to run.
Described by her parents as very persistent, Meg kept pressing the issue with them.
“When I told her that running a half would be too hard, she told me that if Morgan could go through two years of treatment, she could run 13 miles,” Jeremy said. “So, we are letting her run the race.”
Meg gave this reason for running in the races: “I want to raise money for kids that are sick with cancer, like Morgan, so doctors can have better medicines to use.”
For Morgan, the treatments at Arkansas Children’s Hospital included chemotherapy, surgery and a stem-cell transplant. The Schwehms then sought additional treatment — proton radiation and immunotherapy — at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a facility that is recognized as a leader for its work treating Morgan’s type of cancer, stage 4 high-risk neuroblastoma.
Her medical story began with some telltale signs of problems. Morgan, 2 years old at the time, had never been a big eater, but she began to eat less and less. And she would stop playing, telling her parents she stopped because her stomach hurt.
A couple of visits to doctors found nothing that was believed to be serious.
“Liz had a sense something major was wrong,” Jeremy said. “I think I was in a state of denial because I had just lost my mother to cancer, and my father was in the end stages of pancreatic cancer, but Liz knew something was wrong and was not accepting the early diagnoses.”
On a visit to a third doctor, a CT scan was ordered. Immediately after the doctor saw the results, the Schwehms were sent to Arkansas Children’s Hospital.
While obviously frightening for Jeremy and Liz, the diagnosis that her sister had cancer was particularly terrifying for Meg.
At the time, her grandfather in New Orleans was fighting what would prove to be a losing battle with pancreatic cancer. Meg had also lost a grandmother to cancer.
“There was no confusion for Meg as to how serious the news was,” Jeremy said.
In fact, Liz said, “it was really hard for her to understand that there could
be hope.”
As the two years of treatments wound down, Morgan had to learn to eat again and had to rebuild her strength after being confined to bed for so long.
Morgan is already dealing with some health issues that have resulted from the treatments, such as permanent hearing loss. She will also be more susceptible to secondary cancers, and in general, her life expectancy will be shorter. Her type of cancer is one that commonly returns, too, Liz said.
But that medical part of the story goes hand in hand with the emotional side
as well.
“With life after cancer, you are trying to find that new normal for your life,” Liz said. “That’s what we tried to do, but that was very naive thinking on my part.”
As part of Morgan’s follow-up treatment, scans are performed every three months. That creates what is known as “scanxiety,” Jeremy said, “and you don’t sleep for weeks before the scan.” If the scans are clean, there is a big sigh of relief.
“But on that first morning after the scans, the first thing you think about is when you need to schedule the next scan,” he said.
When the scan does come back clean, words like “cured” and “cancer free” are not used, Liz said.
“What [the doctors] say is ‘when we scanned today, there was no evidence of active disease.’ That’s what they say, and we say, ‘We’ll take that.’”
In the months since treatment, Morgan and her family have celebrated occasions that many parents may take for granted. Another birthday, getting to play with friends and taking a gymnastics class are all cause for celebration,
Liz said.
“What Morgan has been through makes milestones all the more special. Moments like that are special because she almost did not get to have them,” Liz said.
While Morgan was undergoing treatment, Meg experienced what many siblings do, Jeremy said. In a manner of speaking, “Meg lost her parents,” Jeremy said, because he and Liz were so focused on Morgan’s treatment. Meg would often stay with other family members while her parents were at Morgan’s hospitals. As a result, “Meg really learned to do a lot for herself,” Jeremy said.
A primary part of what she did, and continues to do, is to help fight childhood cancer in her own way.
Meg has been involved in Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer, and through Meg’s efforts, more than $5,000 has been raised locally.
Meg also discovered a passion for running, which she has combined with her desire to help raise money. She has already run in many races that specifically earmark their proceeds to fight cancer or, as in the case of the RussVegas half marathon, to health care providers and groups that are involved in the fight.
Jeremy said Meg has heard her parents talk about the lack of funding nationwide for childhood cancer, “but those ideas about how she could help all came from her. She is very passionate about it and can’t understand why everyone is not as passionate as she is about the lack of funding.”
Meg said her passion for helping to fight childhood cancer isn’t just about running races and will continue into adulthood. She has learned from her parents that the job title she wants is pediatric oncologist. But the job description is stated more simply by Meg: “I want to be a doctor that fixes kids with cancer.”
Reaching that goal is obviously years away. In the meantime, Meg will keep running.