{"id":69253,"date":"2023-03-28T10:41:48","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T16:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=69253"},"modified":"2023-03-29T09:04:29","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T15:04:29","slug":"former-athlete-professional-trailblazer-still-has-game-in-cancer-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/former-athlete-professional-trailblazer-still-has-game-in-cancer-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Former athlete and professional trailblazer still has game in cancer fight"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"Debra
Debra Murray and her husband, Greg, with grandsons Jackson and newborn Justin. Photo courtesy Debra Murray.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Growing up a competitive gymnast, Debra Murray\u2019s favorite apparatus in the gymnastics school that her father operated was the uneven bars \u2013 difficult and challenging even for the most skilled athlete, leaving little room for error.<\/p>\n

Now 50 years later, she finds herself in a battle against two Stage IV cancers that she tackles with the similar skills she used all those years ago in the routines that helped her stick her landings \u2013 mental toughness, physical endurance and emotional stamina.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been a fighter,\u201d said the 63-year-old Colorado Springs resident. \u201cMy dad always told me \u2013 \u2018Be the best and go after it,\u2019 and that\u2019s what I always tried to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Debra is not one to retreat from a challenge. She\u2019s been pushing back for much of her life against the status quo, whether it was playing sports in a pre-Title IX world<\/a> when girls and women were excluded from athletic opportunities to pursuing a career in a male-dominated profession of sports medicine athletic training. Or more recently, shaking up her life with a move from North Carolina to Colorado with her husband as she faces metastatic breast cancer and metastatic anal cancer.<\/p>\n

Growing up one of six in a competitive family<\/strong><\/h2>\n

She credits much of her spunk and spirit to her parents, who raised her and five sisters in Somerset, Massachusetts, a small town located between Boston and Cape Cod.<\/p>\n

\"Debra
Debra Murray<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She started gymnastics as a 5-year-old. Her mother was a nurse, and her father was a mechanical engineer who also ran a gymnastics school where Debra trained and even coached during middle and high school. They didn\u2019t have much money, and she recalls just one family vacation \u2013 they went camping, and her parents slept in the car, with the girls sleeping outdoors, courtesy of her engineer-trained dad\u2019s diagram that detailed how his half dozen daughters could all fit in one tent.<\/p>\n

Along with gymnastics, she played field hockey, basketball and ran track during her teen years. She remembers it being a busy, happy and disciplined home where four of her sisters went to college with Division 1 gymnastics scholarships.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents expected us to rise, and so we did. They gave us a strong moral compass,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She attended Springfield College before graduating from Ithaca College, and then she went on to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for graduate school. Upon graduation, she was among a pioneering group of women in the early 1980s who became certified athletic trainers \u2013 not an easy job when universities, schools and professional teams were reluctant to hire women to work with their male athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to forge my own way,\u201d Debra said.<\/p>\n

A transplanted Easterner makes a new life in the South<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Her first job was at Cornell University, where she was the athletic trainer for the men\u2019s lacrosse, men\u2019s soccer, women\u2019s field hockey, and men\u2019s and women\u2019s gymnastics teams, before she landed back at UNC in Chapel Hill, where she spent 36 years as a teaching professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science. For the past 35 years, she has been married to her husband Greg, also a UNC grad and native of the state who was a physical education teacher and coach at a K-12 academy in Durham, North Carolina. The two met after one of her sisters, who had been his neighbor in Chapel Hill, introduced them and 10 months later, they were married.<\/p>\n

They created a good life in North Carolina where they had two daughters, Erika and Mariel, and Debra founded and directed the UNC undergraduate apprenticeship athletic training program. During her tenure, she served as aquatics director, health education coordinator and adapted physical activity specialist.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were both teachers all our lives, and it was so empowering,\u201d Debra said. \u201cAnd many of our students \u2013 they became part of the fabric of our lives, and they\u2019ve given us strength to help us get through this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Debra
Debra Murray and her husband, Greg Murray. Photo courtesy of Debra Murray.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The couple even moved back to campus when she became the faculty adviser for Phi Beta Chi, a Christian sorority. Since the then-new sorority didn\u2019t have the funding to pay for a housemother, the couple volunteered to serve as house parents for 30 of the sorority\u2019s members.<\/p>\n

Still, there were major difficulties the family faced along the way. In 2008, Debra was first diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer. In 2020, she was stunned to learn that the breast cancer had returned and that she had anal cancer as well. Battling two cancers proved daunting and Debra would have to retire from her beloved teaching career.<\/p>\n

Cancer fight on two fronts<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Greg and Debra\u2019s daughters had moved to metro Denver. To keep the family together, they moved to Colorado Springs last June. With the assistance of a health concierge service that helped match Debra\u2019s needs with a health care plan and physician, the couple found themselves in the office of Radhika Acharya-Leon<\/a>, chief of oncology services at UCHealth Highlands Ranch Hospital<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy case is very difficult because I have two cancers, both Stage IV, and it\u2019s a moving escalator all the time to keep up with both. Dr. Acharya and her staff have really made a huge difference,\u201d Debra said. \u201cI needed one doctor to navigate both cancers, and I found her. She\u2019s a rock star.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her husband agreed: \u201cThe communication with all of the moving parts and the response of UCHealth has been off the charts,\u201d he said. \u201cThe difference between here and how we were treated in the past is immeasurable.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Acharya, building trust is integral to her relationship with patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been able to develop a wonderful rapport, and it goes both ways. We can really talk to one another and respect one another. She\u2019s a fighter. She\u2019s so smart and she advocates for herself,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Radhika Acharya-Leon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What does fighting two cancers simultaneously entail?<\/p>\n

For Debra, it means taking oral chemotherapy pills every other week for seven days and estrogen-blocking medication.<\/p>\n

She also undergoes two different types of immunotherapy infusion treatments every three weeks for both cancers that prime her immune system to recognize cancer cells as foreign in a better effort to fight them. These cancer treatments will continue throughout her life.<\/p>\n

Immunotherapy uses a person’s natural defenses of their immune system to fight cancer by boosting or changing how the immune system works so it can find and attack cancer cells.<\/p>\n

\u201cImmunotherapy is really the name of the game \u2013 it\u2019s the up-and-coming treatment for so many cancers,\u201d Acharya said.<\/p>\n

Acharya monitors any new symptom or change Debra might experience, determines which cancer is causing it and then shifts treatment accordingly. Both cancers are in remission and \u201cwell controlled,\u201d Acharya said. \u201cWe\u2019re tackling both cancers and she\u2019s in a good spot, but we can\u2019t let up. We must keep a lid on both of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Focusing on a future with her expanding family<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Debra said having a seamless health care protocol at UCHealth Highlands Ranch — she doesn\u2019t wait long for appointments and is greeted by name — has done wonders for her overall well-being. She has more energy, is not so tired, has less stress than before, and is still able to take care of her toddler grandson Jackson, who was just joined by his newborn brother Justin.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have cancer, people look at you and forget they are looking at a person with a heart. You are scared and trying to figure out a healthcare system that is often hard to understand. But UCHealth Highlands Ranch is like a family. Here, I feel everyone knows me as a person \u2013 I\u2019m not just a cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Acharya said that\u2019s exactly the tone she wants to set, enabling patients to feel like it is a \u201chome where staff know your name while you are getting the most technologically advanced medical care possible.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The transplanted North Carolina couple has acclimated not only to the mile high elevation, but they also have embraced the outdoor Colorado lifestyle and most importantly, proximity to their daughters, son-in-law and grandsons.<\/p>\n

And while Greg will always be a Tar Heel fan, he also has a newfound love for the Denver Broncos and says he just might be a cowboy at heart. On the couple\u2019s bucket list are trips to Scotland and Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as she\u2019s healthy, the sky is the limit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Debra said her faith in health care has been restored here, and that\u2019s brought her piece of mind as she continues to fight for each day with her family, like her parents would have wanted her to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI stay focused on the moment, and I enjoy the moment. I\u2019m very fortunate and grateful.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing up a competitive gymnast, Debra Murray\u2019s favorite apparatus in the gymnastics school that her father operated was the uneven bars \u2013 difficult and challenging even for the most skilled athlete, leaving little room for error. Now 50 years later, she finds herself in a battle against two Stage IV cancers that she tackles with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2357,"featured_media":69299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6835,28,3508,21,2918,9179],"class_list":["post-69253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovative-care","tag-breast-cancer-treatment","tag-cancer-care-oncology","tag-cancer-care-patient-stories","tag-southern-colorado","tag-uchealth-highlands-ranch-hospital","tag-urologic-cancer-treatment-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFormer athlete, trailblazer still has game in cancer fight - UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Debra's cancer fight involves two Stage IV cancers. 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