{"id":147307,"date":"2026-01-26T20:34:40","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T01:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147307"},"modified":"2026-01-26T20:34:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T01:34:59","slug":"st-lukes-cancer-patient-defies-odds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147307","title":{"rendered":"St. Luke\u2019s Cancer Patient Defies Odds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo caption:\u00a0<\/strong>(L-R) Lacey Gonzalez\u00a0and mom Carole Kruslicky<\/p>\n

At 68 years old, Carole Kruslicky feels fantastic.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sure, she deals with the aches and pains many people\u00a0<\/a>encounter\u00a0as they age. But given the diagnosis she received 7 1\/2 years ago \u2014 stage IVB cervical cancer \u2014 Kruslicky considers each day a treasure.<\/p>\n

Kruslicky credits Dr. Israel Zighelboim and the rest of the St. Luke\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just so well taken care of,\u201d Kruslicky said. \u201cThey were just always, always there. And not only for me. For my daughter too \u2014 to explain things, to keep her in the loop. Because it\u00a0<\/a>actually is\u00a0harder [the cancer diagnosis] on the family than on the person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t realize that, but the family goes through way, way more. Because they don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

ER doctors ordered bloodwork and a CT scan. They discovered a tumor that\u00a0<\/a>required\u00a0the\u00a0<\/a>expertise\u00a0of a gynecology oncologist.<\/p>\n

Kruslicky\u00a0<\/a>was taken\u00a0by ambulance to St. Luke\u2019s campus in Bethlehem, where she met Dr. Zighelboim. After a biopsy confirmed Kruslicky\u2019s tumor was cancerous, Kruslicky asked Dr. Zighelboim how much time she had left to live.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018Well, Carole. I\u2019m going to be honest with you,\u2019\u201d she recalled. \u201c\u2018Let\u2019s try a couple rounds of chemotherapy. We\u2019ll see how your body reacts, and then we\u2019ll talk further.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Kruslicky never needed to discuss her life expectancy again despite it being what she called \u201cthe elephant in the room.\u201d She had a port installed for chemotherapy and began treatment within 2 weeks. After 3 rounds of aggressive chemotherapy, her tumor began to shrink.<\/p>\n

\u201cCarole\u2019s case exemplifies the positive results that are possible through St. Luke\u2019s sophisticated cancer care,\u201d Dr. Zighelboim said. \u201cWe 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\u2019s approach to patient care. We treat each patient as we treat our own family.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Kruslicky is thrilled with how far she has come since her\u00a0<\/a>initial\u00a0diagnosis. If she ever has a question, she knows where to turn.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo this day, it\u2019s just such a positive and reaffirming office,\u201d Kruslicky said. \u201cThey just all work together so well in that office, and you know you\u2019re just always taken care of.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Dr. Zighelboim], he\u2019s on speed dial if I ever need anything,\u201d she added. \u201cHe\u2019s my first phone call.\u201d<\/p>\n

About St. Luke\u2019s<\/strong><\/p>\n

Founded in 1872, St. Luke\u2019s 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\u2019s biggest employer.<\/p>\n

The Network\u2019s 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\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital is based at the Bethlehem Campus.<\/p>\n

Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke\u2019s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley\u2019s first and only four-year medical school. It also operates the nation\u2019s oldest continuously operated School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 60+ fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 550+ residents and fellows.<\/p>\n

In 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recognized St. Luke\u2019s ahead of nationally renowned Mayo Clinic and Houston Methodist as the nation\u2019s three highest performing health systems for quality, safety and patient experience \u2013 affirming St. Luke\u2019s status as a leader among the largest and best-known health care providers in the country.<\/p>\n

St. Luke\u2019s has been named a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World\u2019s Best Hospital. It is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare\u2019s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction. In 2025, the Network earned straight A\u2019s 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\u2019s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Information provided to TVL by:
\nGary Blockus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo caption:\u00a0(L-R) Lacey Gonzalez\u00a0and mom Carole Kruslicky At 68 years old, Carole Kruslicky feels fantastic. Sure, she deals with the aches and pains many people\u00a0encounter\u00a0as they age. But given the … Continue reading St. Luke\u2019s Cancer Patient Defies Odds<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Kruslicky.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/147308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}