Lakewood Ranch pastor laces up for cancer patient

MANATEE COUNTY — Eden Banks giggles in delight as she turns a silver and blue medallion over in her hand.

“It’s amazing,” says Eden, who is battling cancer. “I love that it has my birthday on it.”

The medallion is a keepsake Banks received from Harvest United Methodist Church Pastor Steve Price. Price earned the token by completing the Rock ’n’ Roll Savannah Marathon Nov. 5. He dubbed the race “Eden’s Run” and ran in her honor.

“Just starting (the race, I knew) that for the last several months, I had been training for that moment, and I was really thinking about doing it in honor of Eden and remembering all the women (who have been) affected by breast cancer,” Price says. “It was more than just an athletic event for me.”

Price has raised more than $3,000 for Eden’s cause of choice, Metavivor, an organization dedicated to funding research for metastatic breast cancer, a breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. Donations are being accepted online through Nov. 15 at www.edensrun.com.

“Hopefully, we’ll continue to raise more awareness and funds,” Price says, noting 30% of breast cancer patients are diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. “It’s a scary thing.”

A STRESS BALL INSIDE
Eden Banks thought she was a healthy 30-year-old woman.

She rarely went to the doctor and rarely got sick. But about two years ago, a strange pain in her side — a discomfort that lasted about five hours and was gone the next morning — seemed different enough that she skipped church that Sunday morning and instead headed to an urgent care clinic.

“For some reason, I felt compelled to go to the doctor,” Banks remembers. “(The pain) was almost like somebody squeezing a stress ball inside me. It was the weirdest feeling.”

At the clinic, doctors suspected something had happened to Banks’ gallbladder and ordered an ultrasound, which revealed spots on her liver.

More than a week and several tests later — on Dec. 21, 2009 — Banks learned her diagnosis. She began treatment almost immediately. And for about six months, the tumors seemed to be in remission. But then, they again began to grow. And by the end of summer, shortly after Banks and her husband, Cory, returned from a trip to Europe, Eden learned the cancer had spread to her brain. She stayed on life support for a week, as doctors worked to increase her white blood-cell count and then to save her life after her body’s immune system began attacking itself.

“I was give a 0% chance of getting off life support,” Eden Banks said. “I spent 22 days in the hospital. My muscles had atrophied. I couldn’t walk after that. I couldn’t feed myself.”

But Eden regained her strength with the help of Cory, and her mother-in-law, Tina, who now acts as Eden’s caretaker.

IN EDEN’S HONOR
Price, who had begun praying for and supporting the Banks family upon Eden’s diagnosis, visited the family at the hospital this summer. It was at that time he offered to run a marathon in Eden’s honor and to raise funds for the cause of her choice, Metavivor.

Eden Banks and Price say they are committed to helping educate others about metastatic breast cancer and hope to raise more funds for the cause, so more lives can be saved from the disease.

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].