SPECIAL BOND—The Blum family of Oak Park—Brianna, 4; Eric and Michele—will walk in the upcoming Thousand Oaks Relay For Life on May 14 and 15. Michele was diagnosed with a brain tumor when she was pregnant with Brianna. She is now tumor-free. For the past three years, Michele and Eric Blum have walked in the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life. The survivors’ lap carries deep meaning to the Oak Park couple.

Michele, 35, has survived a malignant brain tumor. In late 2006, when she was six months’ pregnant, doctors discovered a softball-size growth.

“If anyone had ever said to me I could handle being pregnant and having a brain tumor, I would have said ‘no way.’”

The Blums’ frightening odyssey began with joyous news. In June of ’06, they learned that Michele, a kindergarten teacher at White Oak Elementary School in Westlake Village, was pregnant with their first child.

Her doctors attributed the nausea and headaches she was experiencing to normal symptoms of pregnancy.

“I wasn’t feeling good but, at the end of the school year, everyone is tired and run-down,” she said.

With the start of a new school year in September, Michele was back at work. “I felt the classroom couldn’t go on without me.”

But the nausea and headaches became more severe.

“The people around me said, ‘You don’t look right. Something’s not right. This is not normal,’” Michele said.

Then her right side went numb. Her husband insisted that she undergo tests, including an MRI, which revealed what they feared most: a brain tumor.

“The initial diagnosis was very scary,” said Eric, a chiropractor.

Michele was immediately admitted to UCLA Medical Center, where doctors performed an emergency craniotomy to remove the tumor from her brain.

“The very little I remember about that time was the fear and sadness in my family’s eyes,” Michele said.

The five-hour operation was an amazing success, Eric said, as the surgeons were able to remove 99.9 percent of the tumor.

Michele woke up from surgery in the worst pain of her life. She then underwent seven weeks of radiation while she was pregnant.

With concerns over how the treatment would affect the baby’s health, the child was delivered a month early, in February 2007.

“The baby was amazing,” Eric said of his daughter, Brianna, now 4 years old with curly red hair like her mother. “We took her home right away.”

Just as amazing, Brianna’s mother had made it through the surgery without any brain damage, only a slight hearing loss in her right ear.

Michele had a year of chemotherapy and now has MRIs every four months. Results show she is tumor-free.

She still doesn’t have the energy she once had and isn’t ready to go back to teaching. However, helping others is important to her, and participating in Relay For Life is a step in that direction.

This year the couple will be at Relay For Life at Conejo Creek Park on May 14 and 15.

The staff of Eric’s practice, the Oaks Sports and Wellness Center in Thousand Oaks, will also participate.

The event begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday and ends on Sunday at 9 a.m.

The Blums will be walking the survivors’ lap with Brianna and counting their blessings.

“You have two choices in life— being the victim or making the best of it,” Michele said. “Don’t just rely on your doctors. You have to go out there yourself and do whatever it takes to survive.”

To make a donation to the Blum team fundraiser, go to www.oakssportsandwellness.com. For information on the 2011 Thousand Oaks Relay for Life, visit www.relayforlife.org/thousandoaksca.