Cross-country trek begins

(Reprinted courtesy of The San Diego Union-Tribune.)

OCEAN BEACH, California — Isabella dela Houssaye isn’t someone you’d imagine being diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. The 56-year-old mother of five is a veteran endurance athlete, a lifelong non-smoker and a non-drinker.
But when doctors told dela Houssaye in January 2018 that she had two months to live, she realized the stereotype she’d imagined for sufferers of the disease was seriously out of date.
Two years later, she’s still alive and on a national advocacy campaign to change the public’s perception about lung cancer, even if it’s the last thing she ever does.
Dela Houssaye is the daughter of Dr. Cason and Isabella dela Houssaye of Crowley.
In a ceremony Tuesday morning, March 10, in Ocean Beach, California, dela Houssaye dipped the back tire of her donated Ventum triathlon bike into the Pacific Ocean before setting off on a cross-country, 3,000-mile, 45-day bike ride to advocate for early diagnostics and improved treatments for lung cancer.
The results will come too late for the Lawrenceville, New Jersey, resident. She expects the experimental drug she’s now taking will stop working any day now. She’s at peace with that, as well as the possibility that she may not be well enough to finish her ride. But at least she has begun.
“The one thing about getting a terminal diagnosis is it really brings home the desire to seize the moment,” she said. “I don’t put off what I can do today and I don’t have an attachment to an outcome.
“I set an intention for doing this bike ride and getting across the U.S. and I have to be OK with what I can do toward that goal. God willing I will make it the whole way, but I don’t know. I know I feel strong and can embrace that I’m in this moment now.”
Accompanied by a sudden shower of rain, dela Houssaye pedaled out of Ocean Beach just after noon on Tuesday. Traveling with her 18-year-old son, Christopher, and a small group of supporters, her goal is to cycle 95 to 110 miles each day and dip her front tire in the Atlantic Ocean in Jacksonville, Florida, by April 24.
The trip’s only interruption will be a flight to New York for her bimonthly cancer scan on April 1 at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
The epic bike ride is just the latest ultra-sport activity that dela Houssaye has undertaken with her children since her cancer diagnosis.
Over the past two years, she has planned adventures with each child, all of them ultra-athletes themselves, to “make memories” and pass on parental wisdom before it’s too late.
“I thought I had another 50 years to share life lessons with them, and all of a sudden I had to figure out how to do this in real time quickly,” said dela Houssaye, whose end-of-life adventures with her kids have been chronicled in The New York Times and other national publications.
Since 2018, she has run a marathon in Alaska with her eldest son Cason, 27; completed an Ironman in South Korea with son David, 25; climbed 22,841-foot Mount Aconcagua in Argentina’s Andes Mountains with daughter Bella, 23; and hiked 500 kilometers of the Camino de Santiago pilgrims trail in Spain with son Oliver, 21.
She also completed an 80-mile ultra-marathon in Kazakhstan with her husband, David Crane, and three of the children.
On these journeys, her children witnessed first-hand her triumphs, but also her pain and struggles to persevere.
“Actions speak louder than words, and learning through experience is the most profound way,” she said. “The life lessons I wanted to teach were: How do you get through tough times? How do you dig deep? How do you calm your mind? How do you get rid of negativity? It’s an ongoing journey for me.”
Dela Houssaye said she was an active but non-athletic 35-year-old mother of three, working as a lawyer in Hong Kong, when she decided to sign up for her first endurance event, a 100-kilometer run for charity.
Despite a lack of training, she succeeded and went on to compete over the next two decades in multiple triathlons, ultra-runs and swimming events. It was a lifestyle her children embraced.
Cason has climbed mountains on all seven continents. David biked Africa north to south for charity. Bella hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. Oliver rowed solo across the Atlantic Ocean. And Christopher launched his ultra-biking career on Tuesday.
In January 2018, two months after winning her age division in a half-marathon, dela Houssaye said she went to the doctor for some pain in her bones. X-rays and an ultrasound found nothing, but an MRI found advanced lung cancer, which had spread to her pelvis, spine, brain, sternum and adrenal gland.
Doctors initially gave her two months to live, then found a genetically-targeted drug that promised her another 18 months. Given the extra time, she decided to squeeze half a lifetime into that brief window.
Dela Houssaye, who co-owns the online retail and auction firm Material Culture, credits her longevity to exercise, yoga mindfulness practice, integrative and alternative therapies and spending time outdoors.
She’s sharing her healthy practices on a new website created for people to follow her cross-country journey, bikebreathebelieve.org.
She’s also using the website to expose myths about lung cancer, which is now the leading cause of cancer deaths in the world.
Only 35 percent of lung cancer patients are smokers, and the disease strikes indiscriminately, regardless of age, gender or ethnicity. It’s also rarely detected at an early stage, so just 19 percent of diagnosed patients will survive five years or more.
“I thought I was the outlier for being a nonsmoking young female and healthy exerciser,” she said. “In fact, I am the face of what is becoming lung cancer. Once I realized this, I decided maybe I can be an advocate and turn this into something for good.”