Update 8/31/2017: Our cancer warrior, our friend, our inspiration Lauren Morelle, “won her battle against cancer” yesterday. Her fighting spirit that refused to be defeated will continue to live in our hearts. Our deepest love to her family, friends and community of warriors remains strong and true, just like Lauren.
Wearing a “superwoman” t-shirt, jeans, a sweatshirt, and a trendy short haircut, Lauren Morelle displays the freshness and beauty of a 31-year-old young mother. She’s funny, insightful, and full of life. She’s also a warrior. “I’m a fighter,” Lauren said simply. She is a fighter … in the fight of her life.
Six months after having her son, Jonas, in 2015, she noticed a large lump while breastfeeding that wasn’t going away. She had learned lumps are “usually nothing” while breastfeeding, so she waited from November until January to have it looked at during her annual checkup. Her doctor initially thought it might be a clogged duct, but suggested an ultrasound.
“I’ll never forget, my doctor, who’s a nice Irishman,” she said, with an assumed Irish accent, “coming back and saying, ‘Well now, let’s just do a biopsy.’ ”
Lauren said her attitude was, “I’ve got to get this over with.” She remembers “yucking it up” with her doctors, who took a couple of samples.
Then the call came at work the next day, after she dropped off her kids. Three words: “It is cancer.”
“I huddled on my office wheelie chair and thought, ‘OK, I need to talk to HR’,” she recalled.
An incredibleness that is Lauren
A friend drove her home from work and she told her husband, Nate Stone, and then the rest of her family. She remembers a lot of crying among her loved ones.
“But I was not able to cry; somebody has to be strong, I feel,” Lauren said.
Her sense of humor also kicked in, which she said runs in her family.
The oldest of three children, she is the daughter of state Assemblyman and Majority Leader Joe Morelle, D-Irondequoit, and his wife, Mary Beth.
“Being around a big Italian family, you have to be loud and funny all the time to get yourself heard,” she quipped.
“She always says the most inappropriate things at the most inappropriate times,” said her younger brother, Monroe County Legislator Joseph Morelle Jr., laughing. “But that’s how she gets through it.”
Lauren’s husband, Nate, agreed. “She’s never had a filter,” he said. “It’s one of the many things to love about her.”
Lauren graduated from Eastridge High School in 2004 and finished her degree in communications at SUNY College at Geneseo in three and a half years (because she hated being away from home).
She met Nate, originally from Greece, when they worked together at Seabreeze Amusement Park during her second year of college.
“There’s an incredibleness that is Lauren,” Nate said, recalling the first time he met her at Seabreeze. “It was time to close and she was organizing the workers to do the cha-cha slide!”
“She’s just full of life and energy,” he said, “and so loving, and compassionate, but also strong and assertive.”
They were married in 2011 and had their first child, Arabella, in 2013.
Lauren most recently worked for the YMCA of Greater Rochester communications department, where she marketed camps and after-school programs.
“I was really happy there … and I rode a horse,” Lauren said. “My definition of ‘I’ve made it’.”
She has been out of work for the past year as she battles an aggressive form of breast cancer.
She has nothing but praise for her doctors, Dr. Alissa Huston and Dr. Rachel Farkas, who are part of the Wilmot Cancer Center at UR Medical Center.
Lauren already has been through four rounds of chemotherapy — all the while parenting her two young children.
“She’s an incredible mom,” brother Joseph said. “And her children are bubbly and goofy — her personality.”
Lauren credits the support of her husband and family for helping her every day. “After some of the medicines, I just wanted to sit in a fetal position,” she said. “When you’re sick like that, you really have to find your village.”
Yet, “As a mother and woman, you never turn off that part of your brain that wants to take care of others,” she said. “It got so I couldn’t sleep if I heard them (her children).”
The family now sits together every Sunday morning to plan where the children will be and what her family will do for meals, keeping track on a Google calendar.
“We’re a pretty good machine now,” Lauren said, noting that her mother, Mary Beth, and mother-in-law, Cheryl Stone, share the bulk of the responsibilities.
Of course, worry comes with the territory. “In some ways, we all have cancer,”Joseph Jr. commented quietly.
The thing is, that she has stage-four metastatic breast cancer doesn’t scare her anymore. “I feel bad for cancer,” she said. “What happened in there that made you go all crazy?”
Chemo-cations and a hairstyle of choice
Lauren is currently on chemotherapy again and taking another experimental drug. “Thankfully, a lot of other things are on the table too,” she said.
Nate accompanies her to all chemo appointments, which he and Lauren call “chemo-cations.”
“There’s always some type of positive,” Nate said.
Lauren’s cancer started at stage 2B, and she had her first round of chemo and rang the bell (when it was over). The double mastectomy was in June 2016.
“I think my daughter only remembers me as bald, so that’s a nice thing, and she doesn’t equate that with being sick,” Lauren said. “It’s more like a personal hairstyle choice.”
As for that time-honored parental advice — to get your children on a routine — “Well, we don’t get that in our house,” Lauren said, “but having a mom with a bald head and lot of people around is very normal to them.”
She admits that as a parent, she has to use what she calls the “cancer card” sparingly.
“But I do get out of doing the dishes when I don’t want to,” she laughed.
Even as positive as she is, however, there are days when she’s less than cheerful.
“I give myself three to four times a year … I call it the quarterly cry,” Lauren said.
“You shouldn’t be ashamed to ask for help,” she said reflectively. “You can’t turn your ‘mom’ switch off. But you also can’t refill their glasses when your pitcher is empty.”
Joseph Jr. said she always puts her children first. “They are the reason she fights,” he said. “They need their mom.”
“I know cancer is not a great thing, but I think it did change my life for the better,” Lauren said. “I love more freely, and I don’t care about the things that aren’t important anymore. And I say ‘I love you’ far more now.”
Lauren vs.Cancer on Facebook(and in real life)
Lauren started a blog on Facebook soon after she was diagnosed, which she calls Lauren vs. Cancer.
“I did it because everything in my family is like a bad day of telephone,” she said, referring to the game where you whisper a message and it is passed from person to person and at the end is often something completely different than the original message.
“People would think I was dying by the time it got to Utica, where my father’s family is from,” she said. “Plus, when your father knows a lot of people, nothing stays private for very long.”
Lauren had 400 followers on her site when 13WHAM’s digital reporter Matt Molloy did a story on Feb. 15, 2016. The title of the piece was, “Local woman shares cancer fight on Facebook.”
“And I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve arrived. I’m a ‘local woman’!’” she said.
Lauren now has more than 2,600 followers, and the count keeps climbing. Husband Nate said he is surprised when he looks at the analytics.
“We’ve been amazed that some posts have reached 12,000 to 15,000 people,” he said. “It’s a great way to realize you’re not alone.” Lauren hopes her children will read the blog someday. “I’m such a ham,” she said. “I’ve sworn. I’m bawdy. But me being goofy hopefully has connected with people. I hope to inspire people. I just want my life to mean something.” She combines words — often so funny they bring tears to your eyes — with often-hilarious pictures and videos, most of which poke fun at herself.
Lauren suspects not everyone appreciates her brand of humor. “But people do like to laugh at inappropriate things. … It’s a service I provide!” You have to laugh at cancer, she said. She doesn’t mind people both laughing at her and with her. “If you don’t laugh, you will cry your eyes out,” she said.
One place where she laughs is Pluta Cancer Center, where she’s been treated for the last year and a half and where she knows the staff. “You should come with me to chemo and see how it is. … It’s kind of funny.”
Her husband occasionally steps in with an online report as well. After a several-day absence in mid-March, Nate wrote, “Though it’s not as good of an update as one from her (and I’m sure she will give her take in the morning), I didn’t want the radio silence to worry anyone.”
Here are some Lauren-isms from Lauren vs. Cancer:
“Show of hands — who here, when dealing with bad or scary news, reverts to a five-year-old and wants to run to their parents (to) make everything better?”
“Looking back, I believe I have only been to the ER twice before. One time was when I sliced my finger open cutting a bagel at 19; and the other time was just a few years ago when I had food poisoning. Unfortunately, I can add another trip to the ER to the mix. This time, it was because of my cancer. … Thanks a lot, cancer.”
“I’ve joked for a few weeks that the tumors must be sitting on the bitchy part of my brain. Translation: I haven’t been particularly nice to anyone lately.”
“I have good news, and I have bad news. Let’s rip the Band-Aid off quickly, shall we? The cancer has spread to my brain.”
“What do you do the night before surgery? Lay out your not-over-the-head-clothes, kiss your babies, curse the surgery scheduler that gave you a 6:15 a.m. report time, and gather
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