We Are So Much Stronger Than We Realize – Ovarian Cancer Survivor Helene Unger On How She Found the Strength to Fight

Helene Unger is an ultra-marathon runner – she’s accustomed to putting her body to the test. But she wasn’t expecting to have to put it through ovarian cancer treatment. However, the training and emotional endurance she had developed as a runner really helped her when she was taking on the disease. “In terms of the chemo, my husband and I treated it like I was doing a marathon,” Helene says. “He would say to me, ‘We’ve made it to the halfway mark, we’re at the half-marathon point now, Helene, you can do it.”

Though Helene did say going through chemotherapy was harder than any marathon she’s ever run, it helped a lot to have her husband there, cheering her on. “My rock, my big teddy bear, is my 6-foot-6 husband Greg. Obviously, when you’re just married for a year, we certainly didn’t expect cancer to enter into the picture. I think that going through cancer actually only made us stronger.”