The Tamaqua-Carbon American Cancer Society will hand out its annual “Courage Awards” Sunday night during its 40th annual telethon at Penn’s Peak in Jim Thorpe. Recipients are Jim Thorpe residents Jamie Solomon, William Berger and Anita Stevens; and Belinda Fenstermaker of Lehighton. They will be honored between 7 and 8 p.m. Sunday.

The telethon runs from noon to midnight Saturday and Sunday.

Courage Award honorees are invited to stop by and encourage those watching to support the effort of the telethon.

A Salute to Survivors will again be a part of the Saturday telethon at 7:30 p.m.

The telethon will be seen on the following cable systems: Blue Ridge, Channel 13; Service Electric Schuylkill, 90; Service Electric Lehigh, 50; and Comcast, 15.

Jamie Solomon

After an Oct. 3, 2018, mammogram, doctors told Solomon, a retired Jim Thorpe police secretary and meter attendant, they saw something that looked like cancer. The suspicion was confirmed following a biopsy.

Solomon was diagnosed with invasive carcinoma.

“It was a long journey with a lot of things that went wrong along the way,” Solomon said. “I had a lumpectomy and returned home to recover when I got a call that they found another tumor. I basically had to go back in and redo everything.”

Solomon had a double total mastectomy, a process she still gets emotional thinking about.

By the last week of December, doctors told Solomon she was cancer-free.

“It’s the best feeling in the world,” she said.

Solomon’s advice to anyone battling cancer is to take it one day at a time. She credits her faith in God for taking her a long way in the quest to stay positive that things would work out.

Like almost all cancer survivors, Solomon didn’t get to the cancer-free diagnosis without help. She credits her husband, Bill, other family members, and the Jim Thorpe community as a whole with guiding her along the way.

The Solomons are part of a group of residents who live in “The Heights” section of Jim Thorpe called “The Neighbors on the Hill.”

“They brought us food, I had on-call nurses, and they just took care of me,” a tearful Solomon said. “They came and sang Christmas carols. They gave me the courage I needed. Our neighborhood is full of really wonderful people.”

Solomon said she was honored to get the call from the American Cancer Society letting her know she was receiving a Courage Award this weekend. She hopes to take everything she learned through her own fight and use it to help others who may be going through a similar situation.

“There is no question I want to pay it forward,” she said. “My whole life will be paying it forward.”

Already going the extra mile, Solomon has put donation jars around Jim Thorpe to benefit the American Cancer Society. The jars are located at the Gem Shop, police station, and the 3 Kids Market and Eatery.

“I just wanted to do something special and it warms my heart to see those jars full,” she said. “Our town and the people in it are so giving of themselves.”

Anita Stevens

Stevens, a Jim Thorpe mother of five, was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer on Aug. 4, 2016. She initially went to the doctor for what she thought was a backache, but it wasn’t going away and she was having a hard time breathing.

After getting the news, Stevens immediately took the position that she was not going to let cancer get the best of her.

“I couldn’t walk, that was the first thing,” she said. “But after radiation, I was able to walk and started getting better. I had four-hour chemotherapy sessions and it was able to get rid of all the tumors in the breast.”

The cancer, however, had gone to her liver and her bone, putting yet another challenge in her way.

“You cry until you can’t cry anymore, and of course you get mad, but you still have to tell yourself, I’m not going to let this win,” Stevens said.

A change to her diet and the addition of more exercise in her daily routine helped Stevens recover. She has no new cancer, but still gets 30 minutes of chemotherapy every three weeks.

“I’ll probably be taking something the rest of my life, but I’m back to doing what I love,” she said. “Right now I’m out getting my vegetable garden ready for the season.”

Stevens said she feels honored just to be considered for a Courage Award.

“Everyone who has fought cancer gets courage from somewhere,” she said. “I’m so grateful for my family and my support system and the staff at Lehigh Valley Health Network, who had such a positive attitude throughout.”

The American Cancer Society states that the five-year survival rate after diagnosis for people with stage 4 breast cancer is 22 percent. That never stopped Stevens or a put a dent in her hopes for survival.

She leaned on other cancer patients, such as fellow Courage Award recipient William Berger, to share information.

“I have learned so much about cancer and fighting cancer,” she said. “I just think the main thing is you can’t give up.”

William Berger

A persistent cough sent Berger to his family doctor in February 2018. It has been lingering for two months and the Jim Thorpe resident was seeking a cure to what he thought could be postnasal drip or even pneumonia, which he had twice in the past.

“I got a chest X-ray and probably a half-hour later my family doctor called and said I want you to get a CT scan at the hospital in the morning,” Berger said. “The scan showed a mass on my right lung and I was referred to a pulmonary specialist.”

A biopsy showed lymph nodes enlarged in Berger’s chest area and it was later confirmed it was cancer.

“Everything started going through my mind,” Berger said. “I never smoked. I was still working for the Turnpike at the time. It was very unexpected. I was scared.”

Berger was referred to Dr. Don Popescu, an oncologist in Lehighton. After a second biopsy, Berger was diagnosed with carcinoid cancer.

Still, there was another issue. Berger would eat just a little bit of his meals, yet feel full. More tests revealed a tumor in his stomach and by May 2018, he was also diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“The chemotherapy honestly wasn’t too bad for me,” Berger said. “I got tired, it knocked me down, but I never really got sick. I was very fortunate to never become ill. It would sap my energy and then by the time I felt energized again, it would be time to go get the next treatment.”

The treatment seemed to be fighting the lymphoma, but the lung cancer was still pretty much the same. After the third round of chemotherapy, another drug was added to Berger’s regimen.

Berger went to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City to see a lymphoma specialist and it was later confirmed the lymphoma was out of his spleen and that cancer was in remission.

“The lung cancer on the other hand is likely always going to be there,” Berger said. “The tumor is inoperable, but the outlook is good.”

On Sunday, Berger said, he plans to accept his Courage Award for the cancer patients both before and after him.

“I’m accepting this for everyone who has gone through cancer treatments,” he said. “They’re all warriors and are deserving of this.”

Berger credits his wife Jackie and daughter Brooke with being his support system. He encourages cancer patients to be strong and listen to their doctor, much like he did with Popescu.

“From day one I said I’m going to do everything I’m told to do,” Berger said. “I didn’t know anything about fighting cancer. I’ve learned a lot since then.”

Like Stevens, talking to fellow cancer patients helped Berger.

“Don’t be scared to talk to someone,” he said. “Cancer is everywhere. You can’t go two weeks without hearing about someone who is going through it. It’s always nice to be able to know there is someone there who you can talk to.”

Belinda Fenstermaker

In October 2012, Fenstermaker was headed to do the hair of one of her customers who was getting married when she felt a lump in her right breast.

After an initial mammogram, doctors told her it was only a cyst. About one year later, however, after she got very sick, Fenstermaker had a biopsy and was diagnosed with stage three triple negative breast cancer.

“I went through eight rounds of chemotherapy, had a double mastectomy, had four lymph nodes removed in both arms, and got 35 rounds of radiation before surgery in October 2014,” she said.

Throughout the process, Fenstermaker learned a lot from doctors and other people who had fought cancer. One of the pieces of information she gleaned was that she would start losing her hair around 19 days after the first round of chemotherapy.

“That was pretty much spot on,” she said. “But my friends made it very entertaining. They kind of made it a party where they shaved my head.”

While she’s now cancer free, Fenstermaker still sees her oncologist twice a year, and her surgical oncologist and radiation oncologist once a year. Every three years she also has an MRI.

“Doctors will always be a part of my life because that’s one of your biggest fears, is the cancer going to come back?” she said.

Fenstermaker, like many cancer survivors, is using her experience to help others. She donated her tumor tissue to Sloan Kettering Memorial in New York City and has been a sounding board for people she knows who have been diagnosed.

“I feel like it was meant to be for me to take this path because I’ve been able to help two other people and be there for them to talk to and bounce questions off,” she said.

As for her advice to other cancer patients, Fenstermaker said try to keep your life as normal as possible. She also touts a positive outlook and a strong support system.

“Being recognized as a Courage Award recipient is truly an amazing honor,” she said. “I had the honor of speaking at the Pink Light Walk in Lehighton this year. There are so many amazing people that volunteer to raise money for research and to fight this disease. It’s just truly incredible to be part of the telethon.”