Family has shown it can beat the odds

Published 11:18 pm Friday, February 22, 2008

Marilyn Rosenberg’s mother was told she had only three months to live. That was 36 years ago.

Gerry Rosenberg had previously been diagnosed with Gardner Syndrome, a rare genetic disease that had ravaged her family. Her brother died of the disease in 1959 when he was 29 years old. Her mother — Marilyn’s grandmother — was diagnosed with the disease in 1949 when she was 41 years old.

The disease — now more commonly known by its abbreviation, FAP — causes cancer-causing polyps to grow in the colon.

In October 1971, Gerry Rosenberg was told by doctors that they didn’t believe she had long to live. Marilyn Rosenberg was just 6 years old at the time.

Doctors had found not only the cancerous polyps in Gerry Rosenberg’s colon, but also a football-sized tumor in her abdomen large enough to push other organs out of the way. She was told it was inoperable.

Rosenberg, who lived in Gold Valley, Minn., flew to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to consult with specialists there. She told that she had a 20 percent chance of living two years.

At that point, she was ecstatic.

“Two years, compared to a couple weeks, was really great,” she said.

Gerry Rosenberg beat those odds and then some. Her 71st birthday is on Monday.

Although her oldest daughter, Marilyn Rosenberg of Everett, will be with her that day, it won’t be for a celebration.

Her daughter will be at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., beginning the rounds of tests it will take to determine if the polyps she has signal the third generation of Rosenbergs to be afflicted with the disease.

“I’m very fortunate I’m alive to help Marilyn through her procedure,” her mother said.

When her daughter called in January to tell her about the polyps in her colon, “I told her not to worry; I would make sure she got the best care.”

Gerry Rosenberg had reason to tell her daughter not to worry. She had survived not just one, but several more near-death experiences over the past 36 years.

One of the most recent occurred in June 2005, after she was hospitalized for an obstruction of her small intestine.

Once discharged, a nurse who went to Rosenberg’s home for a routine follow-up encountered a patient she thought wouldn’t survive. Her blood pressure was dangerously low and her kidneys were failing. Yet Rosenberg again beat the odds.

Rosenberg said what helped sustain her when she was originally diagnosed was a fierce resolve not to give up. She had three daughters, then ages 1, 4 and 6.

But after losing 30 pounds in two months and with a life expectancy then predicted to be about a dozen weeks, she finally had to come to terms with the fact that her life might soon end. “I could barely walk from my bedroom to my kitchen,” she said.

One day, she went to her room and had what she describes as “this long talk with God.”

“I said I want to live, to raise my children. It’s very important to me.”

Even so, she said that her dialogue or prayer continued: “If my time has come … I guess I’ll surrender to that.” After she finished, she said she felt a profound sense of peace.

Gerry Rosenberg said she believed there was a reason that she survived. That reason was to spread this message: “I don’t think anybody should ever give up on themselves.”

“When we encounter some very difficult situations, we have to believe in ourselves and believe there’s a power higher than ourselves — whatever that might be,” she said.

“And our bodies can heal. Our bodies are intended to heal.”

Herald reporter Sharon Salyer at 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.