This is Sarah’s Journey, our 25 year old Angel. She had the most beautiful blue eyes and a smile that could light up the darkest room. Even when pain set in she always managed to give a smirk or flash that smile of hers.
In Feb 2012 Sarah had a normal Pap smear; it was months following that she would start having issues. It started with spotting between periods that became more intense through the summer months. She was a stay at home mother of 3 children, just bought a house to and started to remodel it so her family can move into it.
In the beginning of October 2012, she finally went into the doctor after months of irregular periods and heavy bleeding. Her doctor referred her to go to the James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, OH. There,they discovered Stage 2B cervical cancer. In the beginning of November, she was prepped for chemo, radiation & brachytherapy. They tacked one of her ovaries to keep it out of harms way from the radiation so it wouldn’t throw her into menopause.
Heidi (her sister) was the one who took her back and forth to OSU's James Cancer Center. It was usually 2 times a week for chemotherapy. She would be there for hrs. Most of the time she would tell Heidi to go home and she would call her when she was done. She didn't want Heidi around for much of that, Heidi was pregnant. They wanted to do a round or 2 before they started radiation. The radiation started we were driving to the hospital 3-4x a week. Then internal started. That was the hardest to watch. She would be at the hospital for hours upon hours. Some days her counts weren't good enough for her treatment. Some days she was too sick to get out of bed. Some days she wanted to give up. We weren't going to let that happen. She had 3 kids she was fighting for.
She fought like a champ, always kept a smile on her face. EVEN with all of the poking with needles and rods she still smiled. She was very tired all of the time. Didn't want to eat. The only way we could get her to eat was say hey there is McDonald’s or Wendy's. She would smile and say "Yum!"
November 26th is when chemo & radiation started. She finished round one of her treatments on January 29, 2013. The following week she started the brachytherapy. On Feb 15, 2013 she did a MRI at James and they found, she was making great progress and was almost done with this round of treatments. She would finish her treatment at the James. Five days later she would be admitted to OSU for a blood clot near her lungs, she was cleared to go and finished all of her treatments on March 15, 2013 and headed home to Uniopolis, OH to be with her family.
In the beginning of April, Sarah was life flighted from Lima, OH. to James Cancer Hospital for a large mass discovered on her cervix and a blood clot close to her heart. As it turned out, James knew of the clot and the large mass was the pinned up Ovary. This was quite the scare and everything was ok, per James Cancer Hospital.
On April 17th the doctor said everything was a GO to start her second round of Chemo. She never made it to her second round of Chemotherapy due to her car breaking down in route to her appointment at the James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, OH. With newly found clots and kidney damage, Sarah went into surgery to place stints in her kidneys.
On May 7th she had surgery to have stents placed in both kidneys. They were not sure if this would work or not due to all the scar tissue from recent treatments. She is not responding well to the anesthesia, her O2 sats are in the low 80's. They are taking her to recover until they get the breathing tube out and her oxygen saturation back up in the mid 90's.
Facebook Updates from her husband: she is doing better, getting a blood transfusion now. Her vitals have finally begun to stabilize and we are waiting to get her a room in ICU step down. I probably won't update anymore tonight, but thank you for all the thoughts and prayers. God has always been good to us and I know He will lead us through this if we let him!
A May 7th Update from Lee: Sarah is feeling pretty rough today, her kidneys have all but shut down. She is malnourished and her cancer has become very aggressive. All of the treatment that she needs has to be cleared by her kidneys, which are not working. Sarah will be going down to place Neuf Tubes in her kidneys today. This will hopefully take some pressure off of her renal system. If this does not work, she will need dialyses. She really needs everyone to humble down and pray from your hearts that God will reach down and bless the hands and minds of her doctors. We HAVE to get these kidneys working so that she can get back on chemo! Thank you for the support and love.
May 8- Update from Lee: Sarah is feeling much better today. The neuphrostomy tubes seem to be working. With the help of Lasics, she has been filling the drainage bags quite frequently. Her coratinin levels dropped down to 5.2 from 6.93 yesterday. We are finally heading in the right direction. Sarah is actually sitting in a chair today! We will continue to work on regaining strength, getting her off O2, and getting her pain in control. We have yet to hear what the exact plan is for going home or for starting chemo. I am confident in Sarah and her recently renewed will to fight! We will get out of this hospital, we will beat this cancer, and we WILL live long enough to call this nothing more than a distant memory!
May 9th- Doctors at James have exhausted all medical resources to help our Sarah; she will be going home on hospice on May 14th.
May 14- Sarah’s last Facebook post, “Finally home, whoever helped with our house I wish I could hug every single person. It is so breath taking and refreshing.... Now it’s time for me to get better. Love all of you and just asking for prayers.”
May 20, 2013 at 4:45 a.m. Our Sarah took her last breath and became Our Teal Angel.
Sarah Jane we love and miss you dearly and we will never forget you!!
Love your parents: Mary, Tom & Sue
Your Sisters: Rachel, Deidre, Arienne, & Heidi
Your 3 little Clones: Lauren, Bubba, & Lyndsay
Sarah was so strong through all of this. She never stopped fighting!!
ReplyDeleteShe kept a smile on her face and sparkle in her eyes.
She was the best mother and wife and friend anyone could ever ask for !
Xoxo -kacey
My sister, Carmen, is my tiel Angel. She went to heaven in March 2013. I read your story and have so many flashback. God bless you and give your family strength to keep going.
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