June 17, 2009 Doctor battles cancer, as friends ride for a cure Play video

(NECN: Ally Donnelly, Watertown, Mass.) - Vlad Formanek's movements are deliberate. For weeks, he was paralyzed on his right side and has had to relearn how to do almost everything.

“I thought maybe it was a herniated disk and uh I was just having numbness and tingling from a lower back problem.”

It was not a lower back problem. The anesthesiologist was at work -- at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston this past December when he passed out. He was rushed to the E.R., intubated and given a CT scan. He doesn't remember much from those first days, but woke to horrible news. He had had a stroke. A cancerous tumor was pressing on his brain.

Dr. Vlad Formanek: “It was absolutely devastating. There were several nights that I couldn't sleep or that I woke up in the middle of the night, you know, wondering what happened and why did this happen to me.”

Doctors removed most of the tumor -- what they couldn't get is precariously lodged in the part of his brain that controls motor function and speech. The 49-year-old has endured grueling physical therapy and round after round of chemotherapy.

“I think I know what to expect, I always prepare myself for a cycle of chemo and I just try to tough it out.”

His new reality has been challenging. He has spent his adult life climbing mountains, diving seas, volunteering to help children with cleft palate in Africa -- the only time he saw his doctor was his annual physical.

“It was

Dr. Danny Muehlschlegel: “Someone who was on our side of the drapes or the table and all of a sudden he's laying in bed in a hospital gown -- it was hard for us.”

When Dr. Formanek talks about getting better, he doesn't talk about beating cancer for himself -- he says he has to do it for all his friends, family and colleagues who have helped him survive these past months.

Formanek: “I just have to get better, there was just so much love and so much positive energy that I just felt that I have to do my best so that I don't disappoint the people that are so supportive of me.”

Support that is coming by way of push, and pedal.

The first weekend in August about two dozen of his Brigham coworkers will saddle up to ride the Pan Massachusetts Challenge -- a 192-mile bike ride raising money for the Dana Farber cancer institute -- where Formanek gets his care.

Dr. Eileen Lynch: They don't come any better than Vlad.

Dr. Eileen lynch has worked shoulder to shoulder with Formanek for more than two decades.

Dr. Lynch: If there's one person who would always be at your back, no matter what the problem was and not just be there, but be there with a smile, it was Vlad.

Lynch admits, she is no athlete, but will brave the hills of Sturbridge, the dunes of the Cape all the same.

Eileen: My kids aren't sure I'm gonna make it, but I think I will, because my struggle will be over August 1st and 2nd....but Vlad's will go on.

Lynch and other team members must raise more than four thousand dollars a piece to ride the PMC. Formanek knows how critical that money is for Dana Farber -- a place and its people -- he stands in awe of.

“It's very difficult to put it into words, one has to experience it, although I hope that as little as possible -- or as few as possible people -- get to have this experience of being a patient at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.”

Formanek isn't sure if he will be able to return to work as an anesthesiologist, but is certain of one thing -- he will remain in medicine -- perhaps as an internist or a researcher.

"I will fight the battle and I will stay along as long as possible."

And though doctors have told him he may not recover, as Formanek watches his friends pedal along possibility is all he sees.

To help donate, visit www.Ride4Vlad.com.