LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The women's cross county coach at Bellarmine University is on medical leave as she continues radiation treatment following brain surgery and terminal cancer diagnosis.
Angela Hapner Musk, 31, is a three-time All-American in track and cross country and returned in 2016 to coach the team at her alma mater. Three years later, she also took on the role as head women's track and field coach.
'Something's going on'
In October, Hapner Musk was on mile 4 of her 9-mile run when something didn't feel right.
"I stopped, and my left side started shaking and becoming numb," she said.
She was disoriented and couldn't figure out how to get home. Running without her phone, it was a couple walking nearby that called an ambulance to help.
"I kept insisting, 'I think this is stress,'" Hapner Musk said. "'I think this is some strange anxiety attack.'"
It was a stress she attributed to becoming a new mom. She and her husband, Jason, welcomed their daughter, Maeve, in April. Hapner Musk was also juggling the beginning of her seventh cross country season.
Angela Hapner Musk and her daughter Maeve. Photo provided to WDRB News.
"(The EMTs) said, 'Well, you should really go get checked out. We can't find anything wrong, but these are serious symptoms,'" she said.
Jason and Angela Hapner Musk drove to the emergency room on Oct. 2. Five days later, she had brain surgery at University of Louisville Hospital to investigate a mass on her brain.
"We knew it could be something other than brain cancer but we also knew it was a very real possibility going into the surgery that it was," she said.
The surgeon also warned he might have to take some vital parts of the brain that could change her life, like paralysis, and Hapner Musk needed to consent to that.
"I told him do it," she said. "My priority isn't being able to run years from now. My priority is be around for my daughter and my husband and the rest of my family."
'This is brain cancer'
Her surgeon told her the surgery went as well as it could, removing all of the tumor. Glioblastoma is her official diagnosis, a type of aggressive cancer that could come back at any time.
"The the first couple weeks felt, I mean, I was angry," Hapner Musk said. "I felt robbed. ... I felt like having the rest of my life taken away from me. I felt, especially so, that it was so unfair for my daughter and for my family."
But as a psychology major in college, she quickly changed her outlook.
"It's important for me to believe I am still going to be here in 10 years. I am still going to be here in 15 years," Hapner Musk said. "If I let myself stop believing that, that's like the first defense, the most important defense to fall."
The biggest motivator for her positive attitude, Maeve, and being there to see her grow up.
"I'm so grateful to have her," Hapner Musk said. "I can't imagine having gotten this diagnosis without my daughter to always keep front of mind. ... She's been a distraction in the best of ways."
Hapner Musk is one of nine siblings and has lived in Louisville her whole life. And a majority of her adult life has been spent with Bellarmine. She said the support has been "overwhelming."
She is now on medical leave as she continues radiation and various therapies. Her doctors cleared her to run again but she won't be cleared to drive until closer to the end of the year. Despite all of that, she said she tries to make it to her team's practice at least once a week.
"It's hard to completely take yourself away from a group of people that you've been seeing every day," Hapner Musk said. "I think a lot of the women that I coach would say the relationship that I developed with them is a little more than just like coach to athlete. There's things that I help them through that are not athletically-related. So I can't really just like cut myself off from them."
Angela Hapner Musk and her husband Jason Hapner with their daughter Maeve. Photo taken by Michelle Haas provided to WDRB News.
A GoFundMe page set by her siblings has already raised more than $30,000, an effort Hapner Musk was at first hesitant to set up.
"It feels like a big responsibility, I guess, to make sure that I'm a good steward of people's support," she said. "Because that's really important to me that everybody knows that I'm using this wisely and I'm using their support wisely, and, more importantly, that I'm taking it really seriously that I, you know, show them fighting spirits that it deserves."
She also told WDRB News any money raised that isn't needed will be donated to cancer research.
A positive outlook
Hapner Musk said this Christmas was always going to be memorable, as Maeve's first. But she wants to cherish every moment.
"This is giving me an opportunity to really be here in the moment," she said. "Take advantage of all the time that I do get."
It's a battle she's not giving up on.
"I've had so many people throughout this remind me — especially family members — that attitude and outlook they do matter in these things," she said. "And I absolutely believe that."
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