Photo caption: (L-R) Lacey Gonzalez and mom Carole Kruslicky
At 68 years old, Carole Kruslicky feels fantastic.
Sure, she deals with the aches and pains many people encounter as they age. But given the diagnosis she received 7 1/2 years ago — stage IVB cervical cancer — Kruslicky considers each day a treasure.
Kruslicky credits Dr. Israel Zighelboim and the rest of the St. Luke’s University Health Network cancer team for giving her the life she has today. Reaching 2026 was far from certain given that stage IVB cervical cancer is considered incurable. The 5-year relative survival rate is 19%, per the National Cancer Institute website.
“I was just so well taken care of,” Kruslicky said. “They were just always, always there. And not only for me. For my daughter too — to explain things, to keep her in the loop. Because it actually is harder [the cancer diagnosis] on the family than on the person.”
“A lot of people don’t realize that, but the family goes through way, way more. Because they don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
Kruslicky lived with plenty of uncertainty leading up to and after her cervical cancer diagnosis. She endured pain and bleeding in July 2018 that led her to seek emergency-room treatment.
ER doctors ordered bloodwork and a CT scan. They discovered a tumor that required the expertise of a gynecology oncologist.
Kruslicky was taken by ambulance to St. Luke’s campus in Bethlehem, where she met Dr. Zighelboim. After a biopsy confirmed Kruslicky’s tumor was cancerous, Kruslicky asked Dr. Zighelboim how much time she had left to live.
“He said, ‘Well, Carole. I’m going to be honest with you,’” she recalled. “‘Let’s try a couple rounds of chemotherapy. We’ll see how your body reacts, and then we’ll talk further.’”
Kruslicky never needed to discuss her life expectancy again despite it being what she called “the elephant in the room.” She had a port installed for chemotherapy and began treatment within 2 weeks. After 3 rounds of aggressive chemotherapy, her tumor began to shrink.
“Carole’s case exemplifies the positive results that are possible through St. Luke’s sophisticated cancer care,” Dr. Zighelboim said. “We are proud to be able to offer a range of innovative cancer treatments that were hard to imagine not that long ago. But beyond our access to innovative treatments, what sets us apart is our team’s approach to patient care. We treat each patient as we treat our own family.”
Kruslicky had 6 rounds of what she termed hard chemotherapy and another 80 rounds of maintenance over a 5-year period. These days she has 6-month checkups with Dr. Zighelboim.
Kruslicky is thrilled with how far she has come since her initial diagnosis. If she ever has a question, she knows where to turn.
“To this day, it’s just such a positive and reaffirming office,” Kruslicky said. “They just all work together so well in that office, and you know you’re just always taken care of.
“[Dr. Zighelboim], he’s on speed dial if I ever need anything,” she added. “He’s my first phone call.”
About St. Luke’s
Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network with annual net revenue of more than $4.5 billion. With 23,000+ employees at 16 hospital campuses and 350+ outpatient sites, it is the Lehigh Valley’s biggest employer.
The Network’s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital is based at the Bethlehem Campus.
Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only four-year medical school. It also operates the nation’s oldest continuously operated School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 60+ fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 550+ residents and fellows.
In 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recognized St. Luke’s ahead of nationally renowned Mayo Clinic and Houston Methodist as the nation’s three highest performing health systems for quality, safety and patient experience – affirming St. Luke’s status as a leader among the largest and best-known health care providers in the country.
St. Luke’s has been named a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World’s Best Hospital. It is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare’s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction. In 2025, the Network earned straight A’s from Leapfrog across all of its acute care hospitals. It has earned 100 Top Hospital designations from Premier 11 years in a row, including in 2021 when its flagship University Hospital was identified as THE #1 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.
Information provided to TVL by:
Gary Blockus
