Four area residents will receive Courage Awards during the Tamaqua-Carbon ACS telethon benefiting the American Cancer Association.

Mary Ann Grant of Red Hill will also be honored during the annual telethon held from noon to midnight today and Sunday at Penn's Peak in Jim Thorpe.This year's honorees are Patrick Crampsie of Summit Hill; Michael Harleman of Palmerton; and Mary and Danielle Popek of Jim Thorpe.The award presentations will begin at 7 p.m. on Sunday. Blue Ridge Cable TV 13, channel 90 in the Tamaqua-Mahanoy City Service Electric Cable area, and channels 2 and 50 in the Lehigh Valley on the Service Electric Cable system are televising the event.Patrick CrampsieHealth had not been an issue for Crampsie went he went for a routine physical in July 2016.While at the doctor's office, however, he asked his doctor about getting his PSA levels tested as part of his blood work.Crampsie said at first the doctor told him that's not something they usually worry about for 41-year-old patients.But at Crampsie's insistence, the doctor included the test."My PSA levels came back high," Crampsie said.What followed was a retest, a round of antibiotics, and a third test, which continued to show high PSA levels."High PSA levels don't necessarily mean cancer," Crampsie said. "So the next step was a biopsy. I had that done in September, and that's when the cancer was confirmed."Asking about the PSA test had been on Crampsie's mind, but was still a spur of the moment decision."As I've gotten older, I've tried to be a little more health conscious," Crampsie said. "I've been trying to eat better and I try to keep myself a little more informed about health. I have a family history of prostate cancer and I knew that particular test was one that could indicate markers for the cancer. I didn't even go into the physical with my mind made up to ask about it. But while I was there, I decided to ask."The insistence on the test could have been a lifesaver."Obviously discovering it early was very important. A lot of people deal with prostate cancer, but each diagnosis and treatment can be very different depending on age, aggressiveness and other factors."I feel extremely fortunate and blessed to have found out about it like I did. Because there were no signs or indications that something was wrong."Crampsie had surgery and was home the following day."I feel great," he said. "I will be going for some follow up tests to determine where we are at long term, but all signs are positive right now."Early detection was key in Crampsie's case as it is for many others. Following his diagnosis, he put a lot of faith in his medical team."When you decide what route you're going to take to battle this, have faith in it," he said. "There are a lot of unknowns, but you have to give it a chance. Trust your doctors."Like many past award recipients, Crampsie was initially hesitant of the accolades."There are a lot of people out there deserving of this," he said. "If I can be a small part of raising awareness and giving people hope, I'm happy for that."Michael HarlemanHarleman will never forget where he was when he received the call that got the ball rolling on his cancer diagnosis.As chairman of the Carbon County Chamber and Economic Development in 2015, Harleman was sitting in on the settlement when Sharps Compliance Inc. purchased a property that would later house its 40,000-square-foot warehouse in Nesquehoning."We had been working on selling this property for two years and during the settlement I got a call from Dr. Wakstein," Harleman said. "I had been getting bloody noses and had some blood work done and he was calling me with the results. He told me to get to the emergency room right away."After getting several pints of blood in Harleman, doctors did a bone marrow to look at his stem cells."Ninety percent of my bone marrow had cancer," he said. 'I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma."Harleman researched what he considered to be the best cancer centers in the country and decided he wanted to go to Little Rock, Arkansas."It was started by Sam Walton, the founder of WalMart, because he too had myeloma," he said. "They have some of the best researchers in the world all they do is myeloma."The staff in Little Rock told Harleman his unusual case didn't meet any of their protocols, but that they would design a program just for him.Harleman moved to Arkansas for nine months, where he got treatment including six rounds of heavy chemotherapy. Three kinds of chemotherapy pumped through his body at one time."They did a procedure where they punched a hole in my clavicle and I joked with the doctor that it was on my bucket list," Harleman said. "I took that attitude that I was going to have fun with this."By the end of his time at the clinic, Harleman had cancer in just 0.01 percent of his bone marrow. He now gets chemotherapy at St. Luke's one time per week as maintenance and will return to Arkansas at the end of April for a "full-blown line of tests."Before his treatment at the clinic, the expectation was Harleman would have between four months and four years to live.His message to others is one of hope."Cancer knocks you down," he said. 'There were days I crawled to the bathroom. But I encourage people to keep the faith. Treat it as a bump in the road. Every light has a shadow. Don't live in the shadow. We're making great strides in curing all types of cancer. Until then, live every day as a blessing."Mary and Danielle PopekMary Popek thought she was in the clear.After getting a mole checked out by a physician in 2003, Popek learned she had melanoma. Doctors thought they had removed all of the cancer by March.Through a series of scans, however, they learned it metastasized to the kidney."I was at stage 4 and we started very aggressive treatment," she said. "Within two to three years we thought we got it all again but a scan in 2014 found a new area of aortic angiosarcoma, which is untreatable."Popek's last few years have been filled with research programs and clinical trials. After receiving immunotherapy and embolization to help slow down the leak from her aorta, she now heads to Plymouth Meeting once a week for chemotherapy."Every day is a blessing," Popek said. "The research and the programs out there are incredible. I've made it 13 years after I was given five to live. I truthfully mean this, if tomorrow never comes, I have been more than blessed because of these programs."Popek still works five days a week as a nurse and it's her profession, she said, that helped her adjust to hearing the word "cancer.""I think working in a hospital made that less scary, but the first hit is still tough," she said. "I drove from Philadelphia straight up to Scranton and I was really depressed. But I knew I had to go home and be strong for my family."She described receiving a courage award as "overwhelming.""This is a journey you never expect to be on," she added. "But it's something you need to go through with positivity. It's a lot harder if you don't do that. Just because it's cancer doesn't mean it's a death penalty anymore. We are making so many great strides toward a cure."On Sunday, she'll receive a courage award along with her daughter, Danielle."I hope that I've helped Danielle," Mary said. "My biggest thing was to try and keep her positive. Live each second. You don't know what the next thing will be so just laugh and enjoy life."On June 19 and 20, 2015, Danielle was participating in Relay for Life events in Tamaqua in support of her mother.The next day, while working at Palmerton Hospital and having not felt herself for a while, she decided to go to the emergency room.By the end of the day, she had been diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia."I had Lyme disease in the past and when I got sick and had a puffy eye, I just thought that's what it was again," Danielle said. "I kept going to the doctor and they said I was fine, but I had lost 25 pounds and at that relay for my mom, it was hard to do a lap. When I went to the emergency room in Palmerton, it was the first doctor who really listened to me."Following the diagnosis, Danielle was in and out of the hospital five or six times. After two years, she is nearing the end of her treatment.In many ways, being there for her mom helped Danielle with her own battle."It was harder when I found out my mom had cancer," she said. "All I knew at that point was that cancer meant death. You go numb and you're just so crushed. When I was diagnosed, I was just worried about my hair. I was always known for my long hair and I knew this would change me."While her mom chose to go to treatment by herself and keep the cancer battle separate from her family life, Danielle invited anyone and everyone to visit while she was in the hospital.The window of her room gave a perfect view of fireworks at both Dorney Park and the Coca-Cola Park in Allentown. Many nights the family grabbed snacks and spent the evening in Danielle's room enjoying the show."I think having a good support team is essential because then you can't dwell on things," she said. "When you're going through chemotherapy, it's a long day and I wanted people by my side."The bond between Mary and Danielle is clearly an unbreakable one."My mom is the strongest woman I know," Danielle said, "and she'll always be an inspiration for me."