Mom Breaks Tailbone on Ski Slopes, Learns Shocking News from Doctor: 'By the Way, You Have a Tumor' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Liz Healy (left) undergoing treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; (Right) with daughter Ella and husband James.Photo:Courtesy of Liz Healy

Courtesy of Liz Healy

Liz Healy felt fine — until an out-of-control skier collided with her on a trip to Vermont three years ago.

“I smashed my body on ice and smashed my tailbone,” Healy, 48, tells PEOPLE exclusively of the Feb. 13, 2022, accident.

But as she says, “Knocking me on my butt saved my life.”

Liz Healy is raising funds for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.Courtesy of Liz Healy

Her immediate reaction, she says, was disbelief. “I cried. I had my emotional pity party — and then picked myself up and got into, ‘OK, who’s the best kidney surgeon in the country?’ “

She got three medical opinions before seeking care atMemorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center(MSK) in New York, where she met Dr. Paul Russo. “He took one look at the images and said, ‘Something else is going on here.' “

Healy tells PEOPLE that the scans also showed lesions on her liver — lesions that had previously been dismissed, as she’d been told “ignore the liver lesions, because everybody has them."

Russo referred her to a colleague, and MSK put her through “every test imaginable.”

Then, on March 18 at 7 p.m., Healy got a phone call from her kidney surgeon. “I knew picking up that phone — no doctors call you at 7 o’clock on a Friday night unless it’s really bad news.”

Liz Healy undergoes treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.Courtesy of Liz Healy

The verdict was two rare cancers: one in her kidney and stage 4 colon cancer that had metastasized to her liver and multiple lymph nodes.

Healy, who shares three daughters — Ella, now 14, Emily, 34, and Caitlin, 36, with husband James Reichbach — says her family booked an impromptu getaway to Puerto Rico before treatment started, but on the morning of their departure, “I could not keep any food down.”

She went to MSK’s emergency room and learned she had a complete blockage of her colon. Three days later, they had “pulled together a team to do a colon resection, a liver resection,” and a placement of a hockey-puck-like device — ahepatic arterial infusion (HAI)pump — that delivers chemotherapy directly to the liver.

“I tried to pump the brakes. I asked the surgeon ‘Hey, can we wait two weeks?’ Because I thought I could die in the surgery. I want two more weeks to tell my little girl everything — give her list of things I want her to know about life,’” she said of Ella, then 11. “I figured if I got two more weeks I might be able to do that.”

But her surgeon said, “You have 13% chance of living 5 years. Given you have two different cancers, that percentage is probably lower. If you wait two weeks, you will probably go septic and die. And why would you wait? You need to get this stuff out of your body.’ And I shut up and, and I was on my knees [praying] until that surgery went down.”

Liz Healy with her daughter Ella and husband James.Courtesy of Liz Healy

“Based on the research I had done and discussions with my doctor,” Healy said, “I was gonna be basically on chemo for life. I came to terms with that — it’s just gonna continue to be a whack-a-mole situation until the cancer outsmarts my body and the medicines.”

But she’s not done fighting — not just for herself, but to support the work and research done at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. It’s why she’s teamed up withCycle for Survival, a rare-cancer fundraising initiative for MSK that’s raised $400 million since its launch in 2007. All proceeds from the indoor stationary cycling event go to support rare cancer research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

She explains why this particular cause is so important.

Liz Healy’s Cycle for Survival team raises funds for rare cancers at a Darien, Conn., event at Equinox.Courtesy of Liz Healy

“It’s an opportunity to show my gratitude to the doctors, nurses, staff, and aides that saved and are saving my life,” she said. “It’s just like a constant battle, but the reality is I’m alive.”

As Healy adds, her oldest daughter has welcomed a daughter‚ and her middle daughter is expecting twins next month. “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” she says. “This is the absolute best promotion I’ve ever received in my life to be a grandma, and it gives me even more reason to reason to fight.”

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source: people.com