Monterey County Herald, The (CA)
January 9, 2002 Page: A1

Torchbearer's fire burns bright
SYLVIA MOORE

It's late Sunday morning at the Salinas Municipal Pool, and two aspiring synchronized swimmers are getting a lesson from their coach.

"Tip your hands more. That way it will help you go back," Brenda La Mica-Hoge tells 11-year-old Angelina Petronijevic as she tries to perform a back-tuck somersault in the water. Angelina tries again, stretches out and slowly dips her head back in the water, bringing her knees up and around, toes pointed.

"Lock your knees!" cries La Mica-Hoge, wearing a bright red swim cap. "Your head and legs open up together."

La Mica-Hoge, 36, was helping coach members of the Monterey Bay Synchronized Swim Club. The Carmel native had been a synchronized swimmer for the Cypress Swim Club as a youth and for seven years was its assistant coach.

At Carmel High School and San Jose State University, La Mica-Hoge played field hockey and had aspirations to be in the Olympics. Later, she was coaching the Carmel High field hockey and girls' swim teams. Then, at age 32, she got a phone call from her family doctor after a routine checkup.

She had breast cancer.

La Mica-Hoge's story inspired her best friend to nominate her for a spot on the 2002 Winter Olympics Torch Relay, which will wind through the Monterey Peninsula and Salinas on Jan. 17. La Mica-Hoge says she found out about her nomination from one of her players on the Carmel High field hockey team. She didn't know she had won the spot until a Federal Express packet from the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee was dropped in her mailbox.

"I think my husband was more excited than I was," said La Mica-Hoge, whose nomination was accepted by a panel of judges from around the Peninsula. According to the Salt Lake Olympic Committee official Web site, torchbearers were nominated by family, friends and colleagues who wrote an essay describing how nominees embodied the Olympic spirit and provided inspiration to their communities. The Olympic committee received the nominations, which were read and judged by regional community task forces. Other nominations received by Olympic sponsors were selected randomly. La Mica-Hoge will be one of 131 torchbearers who will run the local route, most hailing from Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. Several are from Hawaii, which is not on the relay route.

La Mica-Hoge, who will run about 50 yards through downtown Carmel, said she wondered what was so special about her.

"Who would pick me? There's other people out there in the world worse (off) than me." Her husband, Tim Hoge, feels different. He said he was teary-eyed when the news came of his wife's selection to the relay.

"It's one of those things you don't think will happen in a lifetime," he said. "I think it's a great thing to happen to her. She's more deserving than anyone on the planet."

La Mica-Hoge says fighting breast cancer is like a game - a game she plans to win. When she found out she had the disease, she says she felt nothing at first because she had already battled several obstacles. As a child, she struggled with the learning disability dyslexia, which prompted her to attend San Jose State University and pursue a degree in physical education for special education students. Before La Mica-Hoge was diagnosed, she was caring for her entire family. Her father, Francis La Mica, had suffered a stroke in 1995, and her mother, Atsuko, had had her own battle with colon cancer around that time. In 1998, her husband donated one of his kidneys to his mother.

In 1996, La Mica-Hoge went to her family doctor in Carmel, who suggested she get a routine mammogram. At the time, she was commuting to San Jose, busy taking college classes. She waited 18 months before getting the mammogram. It was 1998, and La Mica-Hoge was heading to the Cypress Swim Club to help the synchronized swim team practice when she got the phone call. She told the team she had to cancel, and called the doctor back. He told her she had breast cancer and needed a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. The biopsy came back positive.

"It just never really hit me," La Mica-Hoge said. "With all these things happening to me, it made me stronger. It made me want to fight."

La Mica-Hoge said her mother took the news hard. Her brother, sister and brother-in-law immediately moved down from San Mateo to support her. La Mica-Hoge says she wondered what would have happened if she hadn't waited to get the mammogram, but her brother-in-law, Russell, told her she needed to forget the past and look positively to the future.

"I kept saying if I went sooner, I could have caught it sooner. But it's too late. I can't go back," she said.

La Mica-Hoge eventually had her right breast removed and reconstructed. Her hair fell out after six months of chemotherapy, and she started on a regimen of the cancer drug tamoxifen. Then, in February of last year, the cancer returned - this time to her bones and spine. Another round of chemotherapy and radiation treatment followed. She was taken off tamoxifen and began another regimen of drugs and steroids. The new cancer had eaten a hole in her spine, making it painful for her to walk. In December, she underwent surgery to alleviate the problem.

In the meantime, La Mica-Hoge had been too sick to continue coaching for the Cypress Swim Club, and she resigned. However, she continued to coach field hockey part-time.

Now, La Mica-Hoge is in remission, and her oncologist says her treatment is going well. But the cancer took away her ability to have children and sent her into early menopause. She says she is just now going back to running, biking and swimming on a regular basis. The cancer also changed her personality, from shy and quiet to more open and outgoing.

At Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, La Mica-Hoge is part of a support group for terminally ill patients called Patients' Navigator. Last year, she gathered a group called B.J.'s (for Brenda June) Cancer Hackers to run at CSU-Monterey Bay's daylong Relay For Life. She walked the relay with a temperature of 102, and the Cancer Hackers raised more than $15,000 for cancer research. She continues to coach synchronized swimming as a freelancer, beginning with the Monterey Bay Swim Club. She serves as official chairwoman for the Central California Synchronized Swimming Association, helping to train judges for swim meets. La Mica-Hoge says that two months ago, in the midst of her second battle with cancer, she felt as if she couldn't go on any longer. Now, she sees life differently.

"I take it day by day. I try to enjoy every moment. Before I go to sleep, I say to my husband, 'Good night, honey, I love you'."