FOREST HILLS — Over 15 years battling breast cancer, Anne Zuschlag, principal of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic Academy, has never wavered from leading the school community. The work, she said, helps her keep going.
“Work is mission. Work is purpose,” said Zuschlag, who has been principal at the school for more than 30 years. “Work is restorative for me.”
Zuschlag was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011. She has since undergone five distinct re-diagnoses, navigating disease progression into her bones and spine, as well as a number of different treatment methods. Her previous treatments have led her to develop Horner syndrome, a rare neurological condition caused by damage to the sympathetic nerve pathway that runs from the brain to the eye and face on one side.
Zuschlag’s current line of treatment is an oral chemotherapy regimen, which brings with it physical side effects including hand-foot syndrome, which affects circulation in a patient’s extremities, causing severe dryness, pain, and cracking skin.
“When you are an advanced cancer patient, you continue to be a cancer patient,” Zuschlag said. “There is no cure, but there is maintaining within the disease and thriving within the disease. That’s very different than a diagnosis years ago, and it’s because of research and how far science has come.”
There are five main stages of breast cancer (zero to four), although Zuschlag noted that “people who are in the battle don’t really use those terminologies anymore.” She describes her cancer diagnosis as past Stage 4 because the disease has spread to multiple sites across her body, including her bones.
“My doctors don’t get overwhelmed, but as a patient, you do,” she said. “I’ve learned over five re-diagnoses that (a new one) doesn’t automatically mean time is up.
“When it appears again, it’s humbling. Then you get back on your horse and keep working.”
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As Breast Cancer Awareness Month winds down, the numbers are a reminder of how many share her fight. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide, and an estimated 324,580 people in the U.S. are diagnosed each year, according to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, including approximately 321,910 women and 2,670 men with invasive breast cancer.
Zuschlag’s diagnosis hasn’t lowered her standards. At Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic Academy, which educates students from nursery through eighth grade, she still runs what she describes as a tight ship.
Academic excellence is a focal point, as are the character and kindness her students show toward one another and in the community.
“We are an academic institution, but our primary mission is growing children into good citizens,” she said.
Zuschlag said she is motivated by what she gives back to the children in her life — the three of her own as well as the other 338 students at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic Academy. Her prayers do not revolve around sustaining her own life.
“It was just really ‘make sure people who need me most will be OK, if it is my time to be called,’ ” she said. “So, I am glad that it hasn’t been called yet.”