Last summer, Alex Hagen struggled to pull his socks up and Rudi Betancourt strained to walk even a few steps. Hagen, a Caledonia firefighter, battled Ewing’s sarcoma, a type of bone cancer, while South Shore firefighter Betancourt was ravaged by Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that affects the lymph nodes. Today both men are back to work, free of cancer so far, and overjoyed at returning to a regular life. “When I was told I could go back to work, I felt like I could finally breathe,” said Hagen, who started with the Caledonia department last March.