'To Hell And Back': LI Woman Writes Book On Cancer Journey

FARMINGDALE, NY — A Farmingdale wife and mother who overcame cancer wrote a book on her cancer journey, from diagnosis to remission.

"To Hell And Back: My Journey Into The Wicked World of Cancer" details Madeline Mortiz's battle with acute myeloid leukemia, all while her husband Bill's life hung in the balance as he awaited a kidney transplant. Moritz was to be his kidney donor before she was diagnosed with cancer. Madeline is in remission and Bill received a kidney from a family friend.

Moritz's book delves into her cancer battle from the day she got certain blood tests back from her doctor that indicated the battle ahead of her. She broke her journey into phases, offered flashbacks to her childhood and shared other anecdotes.

Mortiz said she hopes readers find her book inspirational.

"I really wanted people to understand what a cancer journey was like," Mortiz told Patch. "Obviously, if you don’t have cancer, you’re not going to really get that firsthand experience unless it’s someone very close to you ... Because it’s very difficult, and there are so many aspects to it. I wanted people to take away that the journey, even when you read it, is very difficult and heart wrenching, that you can get through it and you can persevere."

Moritz's book can be purchased on Amazon.

She discussed what she did to get through her AML battle and how she coped. She hopes her book will help people facing any diagnosis or something difficult they're dealing with in life.

"You hear so many people have cancer," she said. "This one has cancer, that one has cancer. But what does that mean? What does it really mean for that person? Everybody knows it’s horrible. This, that or the other. What is involved? What does that person’s family have to go through?"

Moritz aimed to detail her perspective, as well as those of her family members and friends.

"It really encompasses everyone in your life. It affects everybody, and it affects everybody in different ways. That’s what I’m really hoping people get out of it."

Moritz said cancer patients face both physical and mental battles, and that they intertwine.

"Mentally, if you’re in a bad place, then you’re probably not going to be feeling well physically, and vice versa. I think the hard part is to get yourself to a mentally good place despite some of the negative things that are happening, because if you don’t, it’s just going to make it twice as hard to climb that mountain, so to speak."

The balance is not 50/50, however, Moritz said. Especially when she would endure aggressive chemotherapy treatments that would physically take over her whole body. She would stay strong mentally, but it was "very, very debilitating," she said.

"Mentally, you have to keep yourself as strong as humanly possible. Because there’s only one place to go, and that’s down. You can go down and spiral very quickly. It’s definitely a challenge. For me, personally, I found it easy. I don’t know why that is. I was able to keep myself from going into those dark places, aside from some moments here and then. I was able to keep myself very mentally focused and very mentally positive, even despite all the difficulties and side effects and everything else that this ugly word, cancer, brings with it. I recognize that’s not so easy to do for everyone."

Mortiz said there were times where she felt OK mentally but her body would physically put her into what she called a "panic mode." She would have panic attacks and pass out from some of the news she was hearing on occasion, she said.

"Sometimes, your emotions just kind of supersede what your brain is logically trying to tell you. That affects you physically if that makes sense."

Moritz tried to compartmentalize things in order to avoid going to dark places. She broke her cancer journey into phases: diagnosis, chemo in the hospital, outpatient chemo, the stem cell transplant, and recovery.

Thinking about everything at once was "overwhelming," Moritz said, so she avoided talking about steps that were too far down the line, even with her doctors. She dealt with the issue at hand.

"The entire pie was too much to bite off."

Moritz distracted herself with projects around her house and writing her book.

"Even when I was thinking about my cancer journey in the book, it was very cathartic to put it down on paper and to see what the steps were and how you got through it," she said. "That in a strange way was helpful to avoid going to those dark places even though I talk about them a lot in the book. I was almost talking about them in the past tense, which felt good, because it was then behind me."

Mortiz's advice for cancer patients is to not give up.

"Things are horrible. They get horrible, and they can get horrible really fast. Don’t give up, because if you would’ve told me a year ago that I’d be in the place I’m in today, I wouldn’t have believed you. Even when I came out of the hospital a few short weeks after my first hospitalization, family, friends and myself were bewildered that I went from being on death’s door in the ICU and pretty much being given my last rites to sitting in my backyard with my friends and family and laughing and having a good time and enjoying each other’s company. You wouldn’t have believed it. I would say don’t give up no matter how bad things are. You have to keep the will to fight alive."

Moritz emphasized the importance of having a strong network of family and friends. She encouraged those who lack a big social network or large family to join support groups.

"To have people in your life who are positive and will help you through this horrible journey is so important."

Moritz also gave advice to the loved ones of cancer patients. She said they have to be a strong support to people; sometimes even those who never needed much support in their lives before their cancer diagnosis.

"That means being selfless a lot of times, because that cancer patient who’s in your life is very much in need of your time, your attention, your love, your compassion," Moritz said. "That takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of energy. My advice would be, this is the time to put that loved one, if you haven’t at any other point in your life, this is the time to put that person first and that person’s needs first. They need as much support as they can possibly get."

The other key to Moritz's survival through her cancer journey was humor.

"No matter how bad things got, I always saw the humor in things. I always found something, somehow, someway to laugh and make light of things even when things are very heavy. I would say finding that humor and keeping that humor as part of your life is important, because as they say, if you don’t laugh, you’re going to cry, right?"