“I felt free” Melissa said. “A lot of people, when they’re very ill, feel trapped in a body that’s betraying them. Because I had this one thing I could do; it saved my life.”
That feeling became Melissa’s anchor. It gave her hope and strength when her body gave her nothing else. She would think, “If I can feel this now, I should be able to feel it all the time and I would try to live that feeling for the rest of the day.”
Thanks to a scholarship from the fitness center, Melissa now works one-on-one with a personal trainer. “We’re essentially starting at the beginning” she explained. “Six years of being bedridden, chair-ridden – you don’t recover from that overnight.”
With the gentle guidance of her trainer, she’s rebuilding her strength, her mobility, and her confidence. She’s also found a deep sense of community in the group classes. “Everybody encourages everybody,” she said. “We may not see each other outside the fitness center, but there is a network here. A camaraderie. A shared purpose.”
She remembers wondering if this was the right place for her in the beginning. But what she discovered was something different. “This isn’t a gym, it’s a health center. It allows you to be who you are, where you are, and move towards whatever goal you’ve set for yourself.”
For Melissa, that goal is simple: to walk comfortably up the stairs, to hike Mount Baker, and to swim a mile. “If a 92-year-old man here can get on the treadmill” she said, “then I can too!”
Melissa’s story is a powerful reminder that healing isn’t just physical. She believes the Adirondack Health Medical Fitness Center gave her so much more than movement; it gave her back her life.
In March of 2025, Melissa received the all clear from her oncologists. “Without this facility,” Melissa shared, “I honestly think the outcome would not have been the same.”
