Samantha Gomolka felt like she was at the top of a mountain in the fall of 2022. Months later, she was fighting for her life. Her story is anything but expected, but if being a special operator spouse taught her anything, it was this: adapt and overcome. Together.
“Both of my grandfathers served during World War II. I have a lot of regret looking back because I didn’t realize the treasures that I had in front of me as a child,” she explained. “It’s only since I’ve been a military spouse and truly understood the lifestyle as well as the sacrifice that I wish I would have had the wherewithal to ask them about their service when they were alive.”
Her paternal grandfather was a waist gunner on a B-24, serving over 20 combat missions over the oil fields of Romania, earning a Purple Heart in the process. Gomolka’s maternal grandfather was in the Navy and served in the Pacific Theater.
Gomolka and her husband grew up together, even attending the same high school. Though they were good friends in 1999, she lost touch with him as he pursued his dreams in the Army. But after 9/11, she started worrying about that boy and tried to find him. In 2004, she found a memorial wall and saw a group photo a mother of a fallen warrior had posted of her son’s team. The boy Gomolka knew from school was in the picture and it was just the lead she needed to get in touch and reconnect.
“He would come to school in camouflage, head to toe. He exemplifies military service to his core and that’s just part of who he is, which is probably why we can’t break him of it yet,” she laughed. “I have really learned what service is by watching him and his commitment to his brothers and team, making sure that he brings everyone home alive to the best of his ability. I’ve learned a lot from him in my marriage and that’s actually inspired me to be committed to helping others.”
They married in 2005, and she was thrust into the life of being a spouse to a quiet professional. It was jarring, to say the least. After a few moves, her husband relocated her and their now three children home to New York while he pursued his service in a more unconventional way.
Gomolka earned her stethoscope after dreaming of becoming a physician associate for years. “Going to PA school as a mother, and moving out of the house for 18 months to another state to complete the didactic portion of my program was the ultimate teamwork for my husband and me. After I had covered down on caring for our son during multiple deployments, he encouraged me to take my turn and pursue my passion— that level of support was amazing, and I’ll never forget it.”
Graduating at the top of her class, she has since practiced medicine in the fields of pediatrics, gastroenterology and dermatology.
In 2018, the couple founded a nonprofit organization, Project 33 Memorial Foundation, with the aim of honoring one fallen special operator each year on Memorial Day. It was a purposeful way to honor the sanctity of the day by remembering the heroes that gave their lives. “Much of what my husband and his team does will never be known to the rest of us. He was committed to honoring the men he has served with and keeping their memories alive.” Two years later, before the pandemic shut down the world, she co-founded the Inspire Up Foundation with three other military spouses to create community, resources and encouragement for military and first responder families.
“I think the greatest work we do is to elevate people and allow them to feel seen. That’s the kindest and most inspirational thing that anyone can do: to validate who somebody is and the importance of their presence. Sometimes we do it in grand gestures or other times we do it very quietly behind the scenes,” she explained. “I think the mission ultimately remains the same, and it’s always been about that human connection. We’ve said it in multiple interviews; if you can change a moment, you can change a day, which can change a life.”
The nonprofit was born from their launch of GivingTuesdayMilitary, a viral day of community service by those in uniform and their families.
Busy seeing patients and serving others, she found herself minimizing the bloating she was experiencing. But when Gomolka felt a mass in her lower abdomen, she knew something wasn’t right. Results of an ultrasound, MRI and labs raised significant concern, which was confirmed the following week with surgical pathology: the diagnosis was ovarian cancer.
“My arrogance, quite frankly, could have killed me. After receiving that diagnosis, it became clear that I am not invincible. I work in the medical community; I understand the signs and symptoms of cancer. It’s something I just didn’t think would happen to me,” Gomolka shared. “I needed to get on my platform and spread awareness to save even one person from this disease because it made the journey mean something.”
Knowing that there were other military spouses and members pushing through their own health needs to carry on the mission motivated her to be really loud about it. Gomolka brought the world behind the scenes of her total hysterectomy, six months of chemo and elective double mastectomy and reconstruction when genetic testing revealed she was BRCA2 positive.
During her treatment, three military spouses saw her messages and got their own checkups, ultimately leading to their own cancer diagnoses. After she rang her cancer-free bell, Gomolka took the TED Talk stage to discuss the criticality of kindness and its impact not just on others, but personally through her own journey.
“There were six days between the detection of the tumor until I had my hysterectomy and at that point, I had significant right leg pain, which I didn’t know were two deep vein thromboses yet. I had thought that the cancer had metastasized into my bone, so we weren’t sure if I was going to be alive at Christmas,” Gomolka shared. “There were some very real conversations and at that point, my job didn’t matter; our house didn’t matter. Everything that I thought held purpose and value simply fell away, and the only thing I really focused on was my family. Twenty years of deployments, we had discussed my husband’s possible death numerous times. This was the first time we had ever discussed mine.”
She gave notice that she would not be returning to her job in conventional medicine and started a new path. This one would forge her knowledge as a PA with integrative wellness, balancing her new priorities of family and her own health along with finding purpose for her new passion.
“I have a really unique perspective because I was a provider who turned into a patient and have witnessed both sides of that coin. What I’ve identified is there’s a significant gap between eradicating disease and actually promoting wellness,” Gomolka shared. “When I finished active treatment, I was bald, bloated and broken, but everyone congratulated me and said, ‘Yay, you’re finished!’ Survivorship was a lonely road without immediate access to resources on how to heal: nutrition, hormone replacement or physical therapy. I was digging and researching with few resources given to me at that time on how I could heal and get back to who I was prior to diagnosis. It was mind-boggling to me that I was employed for almost 12 years in the medical field and yet I was lost—that those areas are not standard of care practice. It motivated me to learn and help others who may be going through the same thing.”
Life after cancer certainly looks different for her, but Gomolka said she wouldn’t change a thing. She remains committed to helping every military member, spouse and veteran receive better medical care.
“You’re not alone; don’t give up. There were several times where I had to advocate for myself and at one point I just got too tired. I had to ask for people to advocate on my behalf, and I think that was the hardest thing for me to do,” Gomolka implored. “We’re trained to ‘adapt and overcome,’ but what I realized is I didn’t need to do that all by myself. Once you vocalize the words and ask for help, what is fearful becomes empowering.”