A View from a Broad Part I | Part II
Trailblazers | Adventurers | Entrepreneurs | Parents | Givers
Survivors | Officers | Ambassadors | Visionaries | Rockets
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Life-threatening situations and illnesses are the extremist forms of adversity, but the cycle is the same: How can you transform adversity into a challenge that you are ready to face? How do you create success out of that challenge? How can you convert your success into real happiness? And how do you do it again and again and again? Nowhere in our network community has the "power of the story" had a greater or more profound impact than through the voices of women like those we'll hear in this chapter.
Meg Berte
Meg is a former All-American Soccer player and graduate of Harvard University. After teaching high school biology for a year and then working on Wall Street in the analyst programs at NatWest and Credit Suisse First Boston, Meg returned to Harvard to pursue an MBA degree. Following her graduation, she returned to Wall Street and now works in the investor relations group for a prominent hedge fund in New York City. Meg has survived two battles with Hodgkin's disease. She was chosen to join Lance Armstrong's 2005 Bristol Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Team and rode 800 miles from San Diego to Washington DC.
"The cancer was very aggressive. I had to undergo a stem cell transplant, which is intense to say the least. The treatment consisted of very powerful chemotherapy followed by daily radiation treatments for one month. Chemo and radiation treatments are dangerous because they suppress the immune system. The more aggressive the cancer, the stronger the treatment required and the more significant the immuno-suppression. As such, during the most intense period of my treatment, I was put into isolation for almost a month, with only family and very close friends allowed to visit my hospital room. My life felt as if I was in a tailspin and I was scared. The first time I battled cancer, I dealt with the physical treatment of the illness, never doubting that I would get better. This time however, I struggled with the fear of dying. But my desire to fight and to win took over, and I battled my disease head on."
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