Searching for Light
Sarah Grimes
by Sarah Grimes
Being a survivor is about searching for light, even during the darkest periods of your life. It can be difficult, in the moment, to recognize the things that bring you hope and joy. But finding them and embracing them has been my key to staying positive and moving forward despite the anxiety that cancer can bring.
I was 29, and in my second year of experiencing infertility while trying to start a family with my husband. We moved states, found a new infertility specialist, and started a new round of testing. Right away, they found two several centimeter masses, one on each ovary. We monitored them for a month, but they grew. A cancer antigen-125 blood test came back higher than normal. My doctor told me they were referring me to a gynecologic oncologist and recommended I undergo surgery.
Oncology? Cancer. I knew about that. My grandfather had died from cancer. Do I have it?
Surgery? I’d never had one before. How had it escalated to this?
In the next few weeks, we did more scans and bloodwork. My surgeon felt that these tumors could be borderline – nonmalignant, but with the potential to become so. She was right, but by the time I had surgery about a month later, the tumors had spread into my abdomen, and those areas were positive for low-grade serous ovarian cancer. During that surgery, they removed the tumors, fallopian tubes, a cancerous lymph node, and various cancerous spots around my abdomen. Further scans and biopsies showed that the cancer had spread through the lymph nodes of my abdomen, chest and neck, making it stage IV.
So, we made a plan, and I took this day-by-day, step-by-step, to reach my goal of moving past cancer, of proving that stage IV does not mean terminal. With my type of cancer, the best course is to cut away all the cancer. I had three more surgeries over the next three months to remove the cancerous lymph nodes from my body, and ultimately, having a full hysterectomy. But we weren’t done. I decided to join a clinical trial, receiving six rounds of chemotherapy, followed by a daily hormone-inhibiting pill.
Those ten months were the darkest of my life. Yet, I could see at the time, and even more clearly in hindsight, many moments of light:
- My dad sneaking me cookies in the hospital, because my lactose intolerance meant the hospital kitchen couldn’t give them to me.
- Walking the halls in the recovery wing with a fellow survivor, who had experienced multiple types of cancer in her life yet still had a ready smile in her latest battle.
- Being soundly beaten at cards by my mom whose competitive nature still wouldn’t let me win, even as I lay in a hospital bed.
- Oddly looking forward to the Benadryl-fueled power nap I’d have with each chemo infusion.
- Watching my aunt, with a serious insect phobia bravely catch a wasp that was buzzing about my room after a chemo day.
- Seeing my baby niece smile at me and my chemo-bald head when she had recently been wary of unfamiliar adults.
- Experiencing my husband care for me with such devotion that I know when we do adopt a child, he will be an incredible father.
I still have days when the anxiety about the cancer returning, my grief at losing my fertility, or the chronic pain as a result of my surgeries threatens to overwhelm me. But then I think of the hardships I have overcome with the support of all my loved ones and my care team; I let that light infuse my thoughts, recognizing the darkness but moving past it. I think about a song lyric, “the shadow proves the sunshine.” There is no darkness, if there is not also light.
Sarah Grimes is an ovarian cancer survivor.
