INDIANAPOLIS — On his 61st birthday, Jim Luce hit a big personal milestone.
“Oh, it was awesome,” he recalled.
Luce set out to deadlift 200 pounds, but before conquering the weight room, he faced something far more challenging.
“In December of 2023, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's B-cell lymphoma,” he said.
His diagnosis came after unexplained weight loss.
“It was terrifying, right?” he said.
Luce went through four months of chemotherapy.
“I was rung out, and I just didn’t feel in control of my body. My weight was up and down, I was weak, I wasn’t sleeping, all of these things I didn’t know happened after chemotherapy that didn’t just like end when chemotherapy ended,” he said.
Looking to increase his stamina and regain a sense of normalcy, Luce joined IU Health's MOVE program.
“I would say the biggest thing that this program did, that Danny did for me when I started, was get me to come back. That was, honestly, that was the hardest part,” he said.
Danny is Danielle Halsey, Luce’s trainer and the lead program manager for MOVE.
“The goal is to really help patients maintain their physical function during treatment or if I’m seeing patients after treatment to help them get back to that sense of normalcy,” Halsey said.
The program is open to all cancer patients and focuses on strength, endurance and flexibility.
“The general guidelines for cancer survivors and general population is 150 minutes to 300 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week, and then it is two to three days a week of resistance training,” she said.
Halsey said exercise can significantly help with cancer-related fatigue.
“As you’ll see over time, as you slowly improve your overall physical fitness and physical function, your fatigue levels are able to be a little bit more manageable,” she said.
That’s what Luce found through MOVE. The program helped him hit that 200-pound goal, but more importantly, it helped him feel like himself again.
“It was a really rewarding, not just physically but physiologically, to feel like I had gotten back on my feet again,” Luce said.
Luce is now in remission and has graduated from the MOVE program.
You do not have to be an IU Health patient to participate, and the program is free.
