Cancer patient Roseann Iavarone beats long odds and heads home to Massapequa

The outlook was bleak for cancer patient Roseann Iavarone when she checked in three months ago to a nursing and rehabilitation center in Commack.

Iavarone said she felt like a "rag doll" and could barely move.

She was on a ventilator after surgery, and doctors did not know if she would ever breathe on her own again, or even live much longer, medical personnel at the Gurwin Jewish Nursing and Rehabilitation Center said.

On Monday, Iavarone, 74, very much alive and breathing without the aid of a ventilator, left the facility to go home to Massapequa. She got a heroine’s send-off. Staff lined the hallway, clapping and crying, as she headed toward the front door in a wheelchair, a smile on her face and a tiara on her head.

"I'm overwhelmed with emotion," she told reporters. "This institution is blessed by God ... their love, the compassion, the warmth, the dignity, the respect for myself as a person."

Iavarone's daughter, Rachel Dilorenzo, of Manhasset, said she was shocked to see her mother leaving Gurwin, since doctors did not expect her to survive cancer surgery late last year.

"I think my mom is an example that with a lot of love and with a lot of prayers and family and an amazing team, that anything is really possible," Dilorenzo said.

Iavarone, whose family owns the Iavarone Bros. Italian food stores, which are mainly in Nassau County, said she went to the doctor last year because she had long been suffering from heartburn.

It turns out she had esophageal cancer, which surgeons at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan discovered had spread to her stomach. When they operated in December, they had to remove her stomach, said Dr. Grigoriy Krichmar, medical director at Gurwin.

She spent two months at Sloan Kettering and another hospital in the city, including 40 days in the intensive care unit, before being transferred to Gurwin, her daughter said.

"When I came here, I was a rag doll," Iavarone said. "I couldn't even turn on the bed to put a diaper on."

Krichmar said: 'We had a lot of doubts about her recovery. I wasn't sure that we were going to be able to get her off mechanical ventilation."

But they did, and her condition improved beyond expectations, he said.

"She had a great recovery. ... She did amazingly," he said. "I think this is a great achievement."

Iavarone, who is Roman Catholic, attributed her success to several factors beyond good doctors and the staff at Gurwin. Her faith helped pull her through.

"I had Jesus with me all the time," she said.

She was also highly motivated to survive so she could spend more time with her eight grandchildren and three children and their spouses, Iavarone said. Also waiting at home was her dog, Emma Rose.

Iavarone said she could also not discount her DNA. 

 "I'm a tough Italian," she said. "And when I want something done, it's gonna get done."

Her family knows it, too, she added. "They say, ‘Ma, you've still got that fire in there.’ I do."