It’s hard to find a difference between Kari Liotta and Danielle Berkovitz.

Both are University of Wisconsin freshmen. Both live in the same residence hall. Both hold the same leadership position in the same student organization.

Both were diagnosed with cancer when they were 16.

And both beat it.

With Relay for Life around the corner, Liotta and Berkovitz are passionate about their ability to raise awareness of the struggles faced by those afflicted and affected by cancer on the UW campus.

Liotta was diagnosed with thyroid cancer late during her sophomore year of high school. The diagnosis came as a total shock to her.

“We found a tumor in my throat. I went to the doctor for a sinus infection and we noticed a lump [we hadn’t] seen before,” Liotta said. “The doctor was extremely concerned about it, so within two weeks, I was in the hospital having surgery.”

Luckily for Liotta, the tumor was found at an early stage, and she did not need to undergo chemotherapy or radiation treatment. Instead, she received radioactive iodine treatment on her thyroid.

After a month and half, Liotta had beaten the disease.

“It really didn’t hit me until after it was all done, how bad it could have been. I was extremely lucky,” she said.

Thyroid cancer has a high prevalence of relapsing, however, so Liotta still has a check-up every summer.

Berkovitz was diagnosed under similar circumstances, but her struggle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma lasted longer than Liotta’s bout with thyroid cancer. One month after contracting mononucleosis at the age of 16, doctors confirmed that Berkovitz had cancer.

The diagnosis did not come as a great surprise, however, because doctors had told her at the time of the mono diagnosis that cancer might also be a possibility.

“I was on medicine for [mono], and everything kind of went away and I was feeling better,” Berkovitz said. “After I went off those meds, a week later I was already feeling crappy again. And I went to the doctor, and they said, ‘okay, this is what you have.'”

Like Liotta, Berkovitz’s cancer was detected at an early stage. Her doctor gave her a better than 90 percent chance of being cured.

A chemotherapy schedule was established, followed by 20 radiation treatments. Berkovitz missed nearly the entire second semester of her sophomore year, finishing treatment a week before the start of her junior year.

Now Liotta and Berkovitz are helping to raise awareness of cancer to the campus community through their roles at the UW chapter of Colleges Against Cancer.

“Colleges Against Cancer is an American Cancer Society initiative where college kids get together and try to get the word out about different types of cancer,” said Berkovitz, who serves as Survivorship co-chair with Liotta.

The organization regularly distributes flyers and holds fundraising drives. They also organize a “Skin Cancer Awareness Month” and contact pen pals.

But the group’s biggest event of the year is Friday’s Relay for Life.

“It’s a whole community event,” Liotta said. “Even people who aren’t particularly aware of all the things going on with cancer or how big of a problem it is … if they just come to the event, they see how many people it affects.”