Loving Life

UNC alumna Sharon Lee Parker battled cancer and more than lived to tell about it. formed a foundation—for life.

| by Matt Alexander ’09 | Photos by Michael Soloway

On the surface it’s impossible to tell that sharon lee parker is a warrior. She seems like the porcelain roses she collects—both beautiful and fragile, delicate and divine. She is a grandmother who knows exactly how to make a person feel at home and safe in her presence. Parker’s smile is infectious; her willingness to talk and share stories with anyone she meets is legendary. But don’t let this fool you. Like any mildmannered superhero—or in her case, superhuman—Parker’s exterior is actually a veil of armor. Perhaps the only clue to her inner warrior is the necklace she wears. It declares, “I am a life lover”—a mantra that Parker has lived by and that has helped her continue to live. She is a survivor, quite literally.

Parker has always had a tremendous work ethic. “I’ve never been a person just to sit still,” she says. “I love to work and working keeps you young at heart.” She takes after her father in that regard. Her father worked as a reporter until the day he died at the age of 96.

Along with a strong work ethic, Parker always takes on a task or faces a problem with unmatched determination, a willingness to listen and an optimism that allows her to keep going “right through it” no matter how difficult the situation. “For me, the glass is always half full.” Parker attended the University of Northern Colorado to pursue graduate work in gerontology in 1977, studying under gerontology professor Max Shirley. At UNC , Parker excelled, making the Dean’s List and even teaching gerontology classes while still a student herself.

As a child, Parker visited the Concord Resort Hotel in Kiamesha Lake, N.Y., where she met a young boy named George Parker, whose family ran the hotel. “Even at age nine I knew I was going to marry him,” says Parker. And just as she predicted, in 1963, young Sharon Lee married George Parker, along with the family’s 1,200-room Concord Resort. For 25 years, Parker was head of guest relations. Her main job was to make the 3,000 people who could fit into the hotel’s ballroom feel welcome and special. “I used to walk from table to table, making sure everyone was greeted,” Parker says. “I probably greeted over two million guests through the years.”

Until 2002, theirs was an idyllic life—one of love, success, happiness and the joys that fate and family can bring. Then, what began as simple nasal problems and what doctors were calling a “bad case of allergies” changed everything. Parker worried it was something more and decided to have further tests. “No one knows your body better than you,” she says. Doctors ended up taking a routine chest X-ray and soon discovered a “spot” on her lungs, a possible indication of cancer. Parker quickly left her home in Boca Raton, Fla., taking the train to New York where she was put through a battery of tests. In the end, what was thought to be just allergies ended up being a possible lethal combination of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and thyroid cancer. On top of that, Parker had a brain tumor as well, although benign. Parker was now in a war, a battle to retake her body. “I sort of looked at cancer as something I didn’t want in my life, so once I had it, I wanted to smash it . . . destroy it completely.”

Parker took immediate steps to combat her cancer. She moved to Houston to be close to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, one of the best cancer treatment hospitals in the nation. Once settled in Houston, Parker focused her energies on staying healthy and getting through chemotherapy. One of the pillars of Parker’s recovery was being able to rely on the support of many different people—people she had come to call her Healing Team—doctors, nurses, friends and family who surrounded her with hope. “It’s important that everyone has a healing team,” Parker says. “You need to surround yourself with positive people, no matter what you’re facing in your life.”

Parker spent the next eight months fighting the cancer in her body. She cooperated fully with her doctors and nurses, and tried to help fellow patients with her positive attitude and inspirational words. She kept busy, using the Internet to stay connected with the outside world.

Parker was having success and responding well to her treatment when she found out that cancer had rewritten her life yet again. This time Parker’s mother, Cecilia Strauss, was diagnosed with cancer shortly before her 87th birthday. Sadly, Strauss died within a couple of weeks of her diagnosis. Because doctors were concerned with Parker’s low white-blood-cell count, she was unable to fly to Vermont to attend her mother’s funeral. Instead, she had her own ceremony in Houston to mourn her mother’s passing. Parker believed the best way to make her parents proud was to live well. She dedicated getting through chemotherapy to her mother’s memory. “The greatest legacy that you can give your parents is to promote the values, the solid values, that make you a contributing member of your society,” Parker says.

Parker was getting through treatment by taking each chemo session one at a time and using her imagination. Parker says she used to pretend chemotherapy was like going to the spa or the Ritz- Carlton. “I was going to make it into an adventure,” she says. “Of course, there were bad days, but I was determined to be positive about it.”

Eventually, that positive attitude and warrior’s spirit paid off. Parker made it though and was finally given a clean bill of health from her doctors. “In the beginning, when I was diagnosed with two cancers and a brain tumor, I thought to myself, ‘If I’m not going to make it, I want to at least do something positive. I want to leave a legacy.’” Doctors suggested Parker write a book about her experience. “It was something that I didn’t even really think about, but the doctors said that I was so positive about my treatment, and that when other patients talked to me, it really helped them.”

Writing the book, Look Out Cancer, Here I Come!, gave her time to reflect. “I went through a lot,” says Parker. “In fact, I read some of the old emails the other day, and it brought tears to my eyes.” Parker has been able to use her experience in conjunction with her background in gerontology and communication. Parker continues to travel the world speaking about her own personal story of triumph over tragedy. “What I say is from the patient’s point of view with an educated background,” says Parker. Look Out Cancer, Here I Come! is available through her foundation or copies can be picked up at the Ben Nighthorse Campbell Center at the University of Northern Colorado, as well as through her website— www.lifeloverfoundation.org. All proceeds go toward cancer research and the Life Lover Foundation, an organization Parker established to help fund new and novel cancer therapies. “I started the foundation, because I kept saying ‘I am a life lover, I don’t want to die’.”

The foundation’s main focus is new theories and treatment options. “I’m interested in the new therapies, therapies that aren’t necessarily being funded by a big cancer foundation, and anybody can donate to my foundation. Everything goes to cutting-edge research,” says Parker. Parker collaborates with Dr. Andre Goy to decide where the funding goes. Along with the foundation, Parker is involved with UNC ’s renowned Rocky Mountain Cancer Institute, directed by Dr. Carol Schneider.

Through her experience, Parker also works with those who are currently suffering from the disease. She serves as a cancer coach to more than 840 people in locations all around the world. Recently, she helped a young man in Greece get through chemotherapy and radiation.

“I like to visit cancer patients all over. Just the other week, I helped two people—one was a girl who had mouth cancer,” Parker says. “Anything that is medical I recommend to a doctor; anything nonmedical is mine.” This past November, Parker traveled to New York to speak and was also a guest of Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, at the Vale Royal, in Kingston, Jamaica. Despite a hectic schedule and Parker’s work with the foundation, she always makes time for people with cancer. “Anytime anybody wants to call, I am available 24/7,” Parker says.

It has been six years since Parker was diagnosed with cancer. She stills keeps the allergy medicine prescribed to her in her medicine cabinet as a reminder of how lucky she was. She gets checked regularly to make sure there has been no relapse. And she still has a closet full of the hats that she wore during chemotherapy. “The hat is a symbol of my cancer. I think it is important to look good even when you don’t feel good,” Parker says.

All this time Parker has maintained a happy attitude, and this has allowed her to accomplish the many things she has done in her life. “Whatever you do, it doesn’t really matter, as long as you love it, and you give it your all. If you have a passion for it, you’ll come out a winner,” Parker says. “We all want to survive, but when you come out a winner, and you aim higher, you come out a whole plate and not a cracked one."