A Harlem cancer patient has become a hula hooping heroine to the Uptown granny crowd, using a therapeutic form of exercise and inspiring graying ladies to shake up their routines.
Cecelia Carty, 50, marches up and down Lenox Ave. with her best friend Robin Green, 49, twirling a three-foot-wide, hot-pink ring and strutting to the R & B tunes that blare from their iPods.
The sweatsuit-clad pair conduct regular afternoon showcases, dancing from Carty’s home on W. 142 St. south to W. 135th St.
“I am blind; there’s not a lot of things that I can do,” Carty said during a recent performance in front of the Key Food supermarket on W. 140th St.
Carty became blind as a result of the chemo treatments, she says, and doctors removed two tumors from her brain during the summer. She’s also battling rectal cancer.
“It’s something for us to stay fit,” Green said. “It gets us out the house.”
Carty and Green hoop as often as Carty is able — she has been limited to about once a week since her brain surgery — and they’ve built a fan base of shoppers, store workers and straphangers who never fail to greet Carty with hollers and hoots.
Susan Watts/New York Daily News
Cecelia Carty (r.) is blind and suffering from a brain tumor and rectal cancer. It doesn't stop her from hula hooping around Lenox Ave. with pal Robin Green.
“People our age need to start working out,” Calderon said. “I think it’s wonderful what’s she’s doing. More power to her.”
Carty’s hoop is bigger than those used by children, and it’s filled with water so she burns more calories.
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