Daughter Continues To Fight For Dads With Cancer

Meryl Schrank remembers the fondest times with her father Charlie being down the shore. It was there where he was the most relaxed. He had one thing on his mind when he was there: his family.

Now Meryl has one thing on her mind: finding a cure for Lymphoma.

Charlie died of Lymphoma in September 2011 after battling the disease for 18 months. Now, Schrank, a alumni, is continuing to fight for all the families who have to watch their husbands and fathers live with Leukemia and Lymphoma.

Schrank is running for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Man and Woman of the Year award. Fourteen people are each trying to raise $20,000 for the LLS. Schrank has created a Web site to publicize her fundraising effort. The fundraising drive ends May 17.

“When someone you love and care for so deeply is so sick it’s an eye-opening experience,” Schrank said.

Almost immediately after her father was diagnosed, Schrank jumped into action. She ran a half marathon with her team, Charlie’s Angels, to raise money for Lymphoma research. The team had to raise $5,400. Schrank alone raise more than $14,000. She wanted to do something tangible and proactive to support her father.

“Me running became this sort of secret between my father and I,” Schrank said. “I think he was so moved by all the love and support me and the people in his life were giving him, it helped him to keep his fight going. Knowing that we were there fighting for him was so important to him.”

Although Schrank has a minimum goal of $20,000, she is trying to raise $50,000. She said a donation of that size can fund a specific individuals’ research efforts.

“Another $1 could mean someone will get to have one more minute with their loved one; one more hug,” Schrank said. “We need every dollar we can get so people can have more and more time with their families until these diseases, hopefully, don’t exist anymore.”

Lymphoma is a general term used to describe a group of cancers that originate in an individual’s lymphatic system. The two primary types of Hodgkin Lymphoma, which spreads in an orderly manner from one group of lymph nodes to another, and Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL), which spread in a non-orderly fashion.

According to the LLS, 660,000 people in the United States either have Lymphoma or are in remission. Most of them, more than 500,000, have NHL.

"Giving others hope is so important," Schrank said. "My dad saw how much we were fighting for him and it touched him so much."