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When Third District Police Officer Jennifer Vrana found out she had cancer, she believed she had one choice.
That was to fight and win.
Almost two years into stage-four Hodgkin’s disease with bone marrow involvement — the most severe form of the disease — the 34-year-old is doing just that.
Vrana appears to be living proof of the impact attitude can have on handling a personal crisis.
"I controlled [the disease] without a doubt. It became mind over matter," she notes. Two things get Vrana through, she says: determination and willpower.
Cancer rarely walks up to its victims and introduces itself in big, bold letters. In many cases, symptoms are few, if any. Many a routine checkup has unearthed some of the most lethal forms of the disease.
Vrana, who lives by the Melrose Diner, suspected she was simply having hip trouble back in fall 2001. Her left hip had been hurting on and off for a couple of months. But soon, she started experiencing night sweats and shakes. One night, the pain was so bad, it landed her in the emergency room. The results of a CAT scan were not good.
Doctors told her cancer had invaded almost 40 percent of her body. "I was like, ‘S–t’! I was literally the walking dead," she says.
Vrana didn’t cry when she found out, and she hasn’t shed a tear since. "I cry for other people. When it comes to me, I’m a rock."
Nor did she grieve. "Why waste time?" she asks, more philosophically than callously.
Heck, she didn’t even ask that timeless question — why? "There was a reason. It was up to me to find that reason."
Vrana says she has since discovered the reason is so she can "touch others."
The officer frequently lectures about her disease at Pennsylvania Hospital, where she’s being treated. Last month, she spoke at a Hodgkin’s conference in Lansdale. She also lectures one-on-one. Vrana says she’d be happy to sit down and talk to anybody — healthy or sick — about being a cancer survivor.
Coincidentally, touching people’s lives is the very thing Vrana says she loves most about wearing the blue.
As a cop, she’s never hidden the fact that she had cancer. Instead, she wears it like a badge of honor right alongside her law-enforcement badge. "Somehow I got the mindset that people needed to see how well I’m doing. People need to see other people doing well. They absolutely need role models," she says.
Vrana started chemotherapy two weeks after her diagnosis. She did 16 treatments of a four-drug "cocktail" every other Monday.
Cancer causes fatigue, and patients are further wiped out by chemo treatments. Vrana was no exception. There were days when she felt as if she couldn’t get out of bed while undergoing treatment, but she fought the fatigue and reported to work anyway. Vrana was temporarily assigned to a desk job in City Hall because of her illness, and remarkably, she did not miss a day of work while she was receiving chemo.
"I will go out as a cop. It’s who, not just what I am," she says.
Another part of Vrana’s identity is her love of horses. Ever since she was a little girl growing up in Cherry Hill, N.J., with her older brother and sister, she’s loved the animals.
For more than a decade, Vrana and her horse, Joey, have been competing in rodeo events all over the country. Last month, she won an entire rodeo in Maryland after competing and placing in all seven events. Some of the rodeo events Vrana enjoys most are calf-roping, steer-wrestling and barrel races. Anybody who saw the film City Slickers might have some idea of the rush involved, but Vrana insists with a laugh, "This is better!"
"I’m an adrenaline junkie is what it boils down to," she adds.
Vrana stables her horse in Mullica Hill, N.J., and rides mostly in South Jersey. She says the country is a release and her repose from the rigors of the city.
At a very young age, Vrana knew she wanted to be a Philadelphia police officer so she could join its mounted patrol. She moved across the bridge just to achieve that end.
Vrana was originally a Third District officer from 1990-1997. In 1997, she achieved her lifelong dream and secured a position with mounted patrol, where she stayed until 2000. Vrana and her horse, Quinn, became a fixture around the Passyunk Avenue business district and South Street on the weekends.
After being head-hunted by Maryland National Capital Park Police to become part of their elite mounted unit — Prince George’s County Division — Vrana moseyed off to the country. She lasted six months.
Being a city cop and park cop are two completely different animals, she explains.
So Vrana rejoined the Philly police force in 2001, this time working in the Fifth Police District in Roxborough. Seven months later, she received her cancer diagnosis.
In January 2002, Vrana was reassigned to the Third District, where she says her bosses have been very supportive and understanding of her illness.
Last fall, she had a stem-cell transplant that landed her in the hospital for 18 days. Recovery time from such a procedure is normally six months.
Vrana was back in police uniform in two months. Is flying in the face of doctors’ orders a wise move for someone with stage-four Hodgkin’s?
"I’ve been utterly blessed with doctors that understand me, and they let me go out and live," Vrana says.
When she was first diagnosed, the officer would treat herself to trips.
"Every month I gave myself something amazing to look forward to. And I concentrated on living," she says.
One of the most amazing things she did was swim with the dolphins at Sea World’s Discovery Cove. The experience ranks up there with leading the Police Survivors Day Parade last June in Wildwood, an honor for which she was selected by Philadelphia police officials. Decked out in full mounted patrol uniform, Vrana and Joey led the parade.
"When I say I went out and lived — I went out and lived," she says.
