This week on Mom to Mom, Local 10′s Nicole Perez spoke to a South Florida woman who is taking her own challenging experiences losing her child to cancer and turning them into something positive.
Sandra Muvdi is embarking on a trek in South America to raise money for a foundation that helps children and families fighting pediatric cancer.
She is headed to the Southernmost part of the Chilean Patagonia on a five-day trek to reach the end of the world by herself this Christmas.
“I have never done a five-day trek. I have done strenuous hikes that are one day, but never five days. A backpack carrying everything for five days with strangers, going alone on this trip is different,” said Muvdi.
Muvdi will be hiking through the popular W-Trek in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. The journey is 50 miles long with up to nine-hour hiking days, 9,000-foot climbs and crossing a river and ice hiking on Grey Glacier.
“I’m going to be in an area that they say that in an hour you can experience the 5 seasons, and the wind sometimes it says it wipes the hiker away just like down so you can experience all these different things, so you have to be ready,” said Muvdi.
Muvdi is not taking the trek lightly. She told Nicole she has spent the last several months training six days a week.
“Ideally, we would have mountains, but there’s none of those around here. So, I go to the gym I do the treadmill on an incline, and I run, and I walk and on emergency stairs for the building its close to 20 floors I go up and down a few times,” said Muvdi.
Muvdi said her motivation is in honor of those who are fighting cancer now, those who have survived and those who have lost the battle.
She is the founder of the Jessica June Children’s Cancer Foundation, a non-profit she created in 2004 after losing her only child to cancer.
“After the loss of Jessica, my purpose, my passion became also the mission of the foundation. It’s like intertwined- I am the heart of the foundation, and the foundation is me,” said Muvdi.
Jessica passed away in 2003 when she was just seven years old.
“She had leukemia. For the most part its very curable it has a prognosis of 90% curing but not the type that Jessica had. She had acute myocytic leukemia. I didn’t have a chance to look up leukemia in the computer or on the phone. I had no chance to do that. It was so rampant. Her situation was so critical from the moment we got in the hospital; everything went so fast that I didn’t really have the time to understand what the difference is between one and the other. She went into a coma the first day she went into the hospital, and she never woke up from a coma. There was no chance. It was that fast,” said Muvdi.
Muvdi also lost her mother to cancer and she herself was also diagnosed with cancer.
“The experiences that I’ve had in my life have been unfortunately very trying experiences related to cancer – I lost my mom when I was 27. She had lung cancer, so I saw her decline with six months to live and 10 years later Jessica gets diagnosed and that doesn’t compare to anything else to my cancer or my mom dying. It’s a child. You never get over that,” said Muvdi.
Muvdi said now is the right time to get out of her comfort zone and take on this challenge in honor of her daughter and all the children fighting cancer.
“I’m hoping to raise funds. At least $20,000 will go directly to the foundation to provide emergency financial assistance and supportive care services to families that have a child battling cancer. My trek is self-funded. The funds that are raised are 100% for the children that we serve starting in January 2025,” said Muvdi.
Muvdi has been putting in the work and says God-willing she will raise a flag at the end of her journey.
“My conclusion is what will give me peace. You have to trust God’s will. We don’t know why, but trust God’s will,” said Muvdi.
If you would like to donate and support the challenge and the foundation, click on this link.
If you would like to highlight a mom who makes a difference in our community, send us an email at MomToMom@wplg.com.
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Publish date : 2024-12-17 04:31:00
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