BETHEL – Watching Lisa Anderson of Paris leave the starting line in the Trek Across Maine bike ride Friday, it would be hard to believe she has waged a three-year fight against cancer.
Joining thousands of other bikers in the American Lung Association’s annual 180-mile trek from Bethel to Rockland, Anderson explained why she rides: “I like being able to get myself in shape to do it. I am not going to let the cancer ruin my life,” she said, then added, “That, and getting a medal for finishing.”
Anderson started having pain in her thigh in April 2003, yet she prepared to ride in the trek for her sixth time that year. She finished that ride, but shortly after she fell and her hip broke.
It was not simply a break. Anderson found out she had metastatic cancer, a tumor that had already spread bad cells to other parts of her body. Surgery in August 2003 and a lumpectomy in September confirmed it had been breast cancer that spread.
Anderson also underwent two surgeries that year to correct compression on the vertebrae in her neck, which required a rod to be placed in her back. She also received a bone graft.
In February 2004, three more vertebrae fractured and another rod was inserted. At this point, when some people would have given up the idea of taking a 180-mile bike ride, Anderson trained and then rode in the trek that June.
Shortly after the 2004 race, a brain tumor was discovered. She received radiation and the tumor disappeared.
“So did my hair,” she said with a laugh.
In January 2005, a tumor was discovered on her lung. Chemotherapy made this one disappear as well. A CAT scan Tuesday confirmed that it is indeed gone.
Anderson said she expects this year’s trek, which ends tomorrow on the coast, to be harder because of the rain.
“I did a 40-mile ride last weekend in blistering heat,” she said. “So we can just putter along and finish. If I can get up over the mountain (Holt Hill), the one before Wilton, I’ll be OK. There’s a short, steep little jig of road before the mountain where I usually get off the bike and walk.
“I’ve made it up the mountain without stopping to catch my breath, but not last year,” she said.
Anderson receives a biological agent treatment once a week, but she says it gives her no side-effects. Her main concern is the reduction of head movement because of the rods in her neck. Putting a rearview mirror on her bike has helped overcome this problem.
Anderson has been featured in the Central Maine Medical Center Cancer Program Annual Report in 2004 as someone successfully living with cancer.
When asked if she had any advice for other cancer patients, she didn’t hesitate. “Don’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself,” she said. “Get out and keep things as normal as possible. You’ve got to keep going, got to keep going.”
In addition to her bike riding, she is a medical assistant to a psychiatrist at Tri County Mental Health Services in Lewiston. She plays violin in her church each week and in the Androscoggin Valley Community Orchestra. She is dedicated to her husband, Raymond, her mother, Shirley Twitchell, and her animals: four goats, two horses, two dogs and a cat.
“This is the same bike I’ve had for the eight years I’ve done the trek. I love this bicycle,” Anderson said Friday morning before the start of the trek. Her mother was at the starting gate to cheer on two daughters, Lisa and her sister, Karalee Giasson, of Lewiston, who is making her fifth trek this year.
“Onward and upward,” Anderson said as she hugged her mother.
And then she was gone.
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