North Bay Woman

F A L L 2 0 1 4 | NORTH BAY WOMAN 21 cancer stabilized. She didn't lose her hair. She didn't look like a cancer patient. For the most part, her friends said, she didn't act like one, either. In fact, when an unusually high number of friends, acquaintances and family members received cancer diagnoses, Lis was the one acting healthy. Not only did she become a resource about doctors and treatments, she turned a wig-shopping trip with one friend into a laugh-out-loud escapade. In 2012, Lis boarded a red-eye to visit her sister-in-law, Cindy Habig in New York, Habig had just undergone surgery for a double mastectomy. It didn't matter that Hurricane Sandy was barreling down on the East Coast, that trees were uprooting and electricity was out, or that Lis would be wearing a head lamp to help tend to Cindy and her uncomfortable drains. "She doesn't have a sister and I don't either," Lis said. "I was happy to help and get her through the worst of it." Living with Uncertainty In July 2012, Lis joined her third Avon walk. At the time, her cancer was stabilized, but still, she told the crowd from the stage, "I know my future is uncertain." Unlike her predecessors who often spoke triumphantly about beating cancer, Lis brought to light the uncomfortable and incurable reality of metastatic disease. The crowd was transfixed, said Eloise Caggiano, who is in charge of the annual walks. "She spoke with such strength and without a tear in her eye or a quiver in her voice," Caggiano said. "To have a positive outlook is very challenging. She is positive and strong and inspiring." In the fall of 2013, just after her fourth Avon walk, she found out her cancer was no longer responding to hormonal therapy and had >

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