Puma Press: April 2001 Top Story

Athletic Director Cindy Shoenhair sits quietly in her office at PVCC. On display all about her are photos of her children, two boys and twin girls. It is for their sake, she says, that she fights so hard to win this battle with cancer. After four months of treatment at the Arizona Cancer Center, Shoenhair has the first indication that her efforts are paying off. The tumors in her lungs, she has learned, have disappeared.

Shoenhair first came to PVCC in 1988 to work part-time in the fitness center after years in corporate fitness in Phoenix. In 1989, she was hired as full-time faculty, and in 1995, Fred Stahl, then Dean of Instruction, asked her to "watch over" a small athletic program on campus as assistant athletic director.

Under her watch that program has distinguished itself in national competitions and has expanded from tennis and golf to include cross country, track and field and men's and women's soccer. Women's softball is currently in the processing stages.

Last fall, Shoenhair took over as PVCC's athletic director. This spring she was selected as a .recipient of the Maricopa Foundation's Employee Recognition Program for 2001-2002 As good as she is at her job, Shoenhair is more than an athletic director. She is a wife of 21 years. She is a mother, the parent of four children.

On top of all this, she is a cancer survivor. Her battle with cancer began in 1995 when, at 35, Shoenhair had a mammogram and ultrasound, then a biopsy. In the process, her surgeon discovered she had breast cancer. After her lymph nodes were removed, doctors detected more cancer. They sent Shoenhair to the Arizona Cancer Center at the University of Arizona for experimental treatment. There she received traditional chemotherapy, had a bone marrow transplant and underwent radiation treatment for nine months.

"My kids were really little then, so I wanted to take the most aggressive treatment possible," she said. Her youngest (twins) were two-years-old at the time. As she chose her treatment, she says, she thought, "I will do whatever it takes to get better for them."

For the next five years, Shoenhair says she was "perfectly healthy." During this time, she was involved in the Emerging Leaders program on campus and helped to engineer the First Year Experience for students, which made its debut at PVCC last fall.

About that time, in September 2000, Shoenhair developed a bad cough that would not go away. It was allergy season, and she believed she had asthma. By October, when her cough had persisted, she went to an oncologist. In a biopsy doctors discovered that her cancer had returned.

This time, it manifest in her liver, lungs and some of her bones. Shoenhair didn't have any options. She would do whatever the doctor advised.

Once again at U of A, Shoenhair received treatment, this time with two drugs that were not yet available in 1995. Since last November, she has been on seven different drugs, including Taxol, a chemotherapy drug, and Herceptin, a monoclonal antibody which "goes into your body and selectively attaches to cells and stops them from reproducing." While these drugs had helped to eradicate the cancer in her liver and lungs, more recent test scans have shown that Taxol is no longer doing its job. Tumors have grown back in her liver and bones, and Shoenhair has been put on a new medication called Navelbene.

Surprisingly, except for her treatment days in Tucson, Shoenhair has not missed a day of work during this latest bout with cancer. Even though her body feels tired, like "recovering from the flu," she has been able to maintain a daily work schedule. She says she would rather come to work than sit at home and make herself even sicker by focusing on her illness. She says it's been "difficult physically, but good for me mentally."

How is her family handling her battle?

Shoenhair's eyes cloud up with tears. "My husband and I have tried to keep the kids' lives as normal as possible," she says, while at the same time admitting that they have nowhere near to normal children's lives.

When she doesn't feel good, the kids notice and it bothers them. Instead of playing at the park, they'll stay in and have movie days. On the good days, she says, like typical, happy-go-lucky kids, "they don't really think about it."

Of her husband, Shoenhair says he's "a real trooper˜I couldn't ask for any better support than I get from him." Together they have tried to raise their children with the awareness of Shoenhair's illness, but without fear or worry. They tell them, "We're all going to die sometime, and only God knows when that is going to be."

Shoenhair says her goal in life is to "stay healthy until my kids are grown up. Someone else can do the job I'm doing right now, but no one else can be their mom." Tears well up and her chin quivers.

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	Life's not easy, but... what you see along the way is awesome...
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What could possibly sustain a person in a situation such as this?

For Shoenhair, it's her faith in God.

"For me, that's it," she says. "I'm a Christian. I read the Bible. If I do die, I am going to heaven." She believes God will heal her from this although she doesn't know how. She has simply put her faith in God and the Bible.

Shoenhair credits what she calls a "determined personality" for preparing her for this cancer she has now faced twice. She laughs and says that her mother would probably say she was a stubborn child, a trait that has carried over into adulthood and this battle. She also says the support she has received from her family, friends and fellow faculty and staff at PVCC has helped her through this time.

Shoenhair's motto in life is "Whatever you do, do it to your best." She says this has played a definite role in the last six years of her life.

"What your philosophy is in life carries to all segments of life," she says. "Whatever you believe in, go for it 100 percent."

It is this determination that has kept her working every day, coming home to play with her children after work, exercising in spite of weakness and fighting to overcome a deadly disease.

Shoenhair has an incredibly positive view of her situation and her life.

What has she learned through this process?

"Life's not easy, but that's OK," she says simply, pausing for a moment. "What you see along the way is awesome. It can be hard, but life can be richer because of that. People have to choose what that is going to be in their own lives."

Shoenhair has chosen to fight, to press on with her life and to find the "richness," even in the hard times. What she has overcome in the past, she believes she can overcome again. To many, this kind of courage has made her a role model. She has a slightly different take on the matter, though.

"I don't that know you're courageous if your back is up against a wall," she says. "It hasn't really been a choice for me. It's just something I've been faced with and I'm going to deal with it the best I know how."

It may not be what she considers one of her greatest achievements, but to those watching her, working with her, interacting with her on any level, Shoenhair is considered an inspiration and a hero.