From ailing athlete to leukemia survivor, advocate

IMAGINE this: You are a 17-year-old athlete, fielding recruiting offers to play college basketball when, on a fine September day, you learn you might die.

That's what happened in 1995 to Kate Goldberger, then a high school senior in Binghamton. Swollen lymph nodes in her armpits, headaches and bruising led to tests and a diagnosis of acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL).

She was given a 30 percent chance of going into remission, without which she couldn't even attempt a lifesaving bone marrow transplant.

"It was pure shock," said Goldberger, now a 31-year-old information technology manager for a personal care products company in midtown Manhattan. "There is no way to wrap your brain around someone telling you something like this."

But, with the support of her parents, brother, friends, school and community, she underwent intensive chemotherapy that produced remission, then a bone-marrow transplant. Next came a year of largely staying home and avoiding crowded rooms to avoid infection, ending in a jubilant New Year's Eve party in 1996.

She graduated from SUNY-Binghamton and moved to Manhattan, where she volunteers for the I'm Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation (i2y.com), a national support and advocacy group of young adult, long-term cancer survivors.

All is not carefree in this tale of survival, however. She lives with the aftereffects of treatment, which she says she accepts. She is more susceptible to illness because bone marrow transplant patients have new, childlike immune systems that gradually rebuild. Prolonged chemotherapy has also left her with short-term memory loss and rendered her infertile.

But the experiences she endured have produced positive effects too, even beyond simple survival.

"I have to believe it did change my attitude toward life," said Goldberger. "I was always outspoken and philanthropically inclined but to be able to use my own story with other cancer survivors through I[2]y has been amazingly fulfilling for me."