John Foote with is wife Sherri, who he calls his ‘superhero’. Sherri has battled brain cancer for the past two years but is positive about her future.
It’s been two years.
Two years since I felt the ground beneath my chair tremble, our lives forever altered by the news our doctor was delivering. Sherri, my wife, had brain cancer.
Dr. Anthony Brown, one of the most decent and gentle men I know, looked us each in the eye and told us there was a large, malignant brain tumour in the frontal area of Sherri’s brain, and she need immediate surgery. He had already made the arrangements for us to see a neurosurgeon he knew and trusted at Sunnybrook the next day. We left stunned, though Sherri was surprisingly calm.
It all began two nights earlier when I awoke at one in the morning to violent convulsions beside me in bed. I threw the lights on to see my wife, normally a deep sleeper in the throes of a grand mal seizure. It went on and on and to say I was afraid was an understatement, I was terrified.
So long did she convulse I eventually began watching for blood to come out of her ears, and thought to myself, “This is how Sherri is going to die”.
I held onto her and told her I loved her, and gradually the seizure subsided enough for me to get to a phone. I dialed 911 and the ambulance was dispatched. By now she had calmed but it took quite some time for the paramedics to revive her, enough that there was concern growing.
When she came around she was disoriented, finally calling my name and telling me she was scared. They loaded her on to a chair for the ride down the stairs and it was off to the hospital. There we spent the night while my Dad, who by some incredible fluke happened to be staying with us that night, looked after our girls.
The next day we were sent us to Oshawa for CT scan which revealed a mass. The next day it was back to Oshawa for a more detailed MRI - and this revealed a large malignant tumour.
Cancer.
Through it all Sherri, was an ocean of calm, a pillar of strength. No tears, no weak moments, nothing. Quiet fear and realization.
When told it was a large malignant tumour, she paused and asked “OK, what’s next?” The surgery went well and the neurosurgeon, Dr. Fazl, who I listened to postpone his vacation to do this surgery, was able to get only a portion of the tumour (any more would have caused brain damage) to be followed by radiation. Sherri’s gorgeous red locks had been shorn and a nasty, much larger than we anticipated scar displayed where they had gone into my wife’s head.
Radiation came next.
Again, Monday through Friday for six weeks she went down to Sunnybrook – arranging her rides as she was not allowed to drive - never complaining; she went through this stoic, even when her hair began to fall out leaving her with what she called the “Benjamin Franklin cut”. I did not care, she looked beautiful to me.
Following radiation, there was a mark on her brain that concerned the doctors and on New Year’s Eve, while holidaying at the Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls with our girls, we got the news it was not new growth of tumour, saving us from the chemo treatment we were preparing for.
There is no known “cure” for brain cancer. There is still not a lot known about it and it is among the least funded of cancer research programs. I watched her pay attention when people she knew died of cancer,
I watched her reaction when Senator Ted Kennedy succumbed to brain cancer, diagnosed two days after her. “It will come back, it will become active again”, Dr. Parry, her neurooncologist has told us, “it is just a matter of when.”
So she lives with this time bomb in her head, doing everything she can to minimize the risk of an early return. She’s a green tea junkie, salmon and broccoli are regulars at meals – oh, and a reduced sugar diet; these are just a few changes in her arsenal.
I go to bed each night with this extraordinary woman, fearless, worried about those around her more than herself, and she wakes up each day treating each day as a gift. She somehow is able to walk through her day without thinking of the cancer, without worrying about it. The fatigue, that constant, bone tired fatigue wears her down and frustrates her and there are memory issues but by and large she is doing quite well.
I had often wondered how I got out of that car accident alive nine years ago, and why I was spared. I mean, the crash was terrible and my injuries life threatening; I likely should have died. So often I have wondered how I got out of there alive, and more importantly, why?
Now I know. It was to support Sherri through this, to be the rock she was for me, to be the shoulder, to be the one she turns to when she’s down, and smile through the little victories and fight this war with her.
It’s funny, I was never afraid when I was in the hospital recovering, even when there was concern about my ability to walk again. I just knew I would. But with Sherri - I’m afraid. I am afraid of losing her, I am afraid of what the cancer could do to her. This is brain cancer after all.
Sherri is a superhero. No cape, no tights, no x-ray vision - but a superhero nonetheless. Though she can’t fly, her spirit soars, though she can’t deflect bullets, she can hold a terrible disease at bay. And I smile at the example of courage she is setting for our daughters, hell for everyone who knows her. Talk about woman power!
And I know her. I know better than anyone. I know in the moments before she drifts off, there are fears – but they are fears for our children, for me, for our future. And these are the normal fears of any person. However, I know she also wonders sometimes how all of this will play out.
I know she worries what would become of me if I lost her and how the girls would handle it. I feel sometimes when she rests her head on my shoulder before falling asleep, she is hanging on for dear life, and if so, then so be it. Let me be there for her as she was for me.
What happens if this all goes terribly wrong? She has already taught us what to do…we carry on imbued with her strength, perhaps her greatest gift to us.
We guys are never the strong ones you know, and the sooner we admit that, the sooner we will get over ourselves and our fragile male egos. It is the ladies who are the strength in the family, it always has been.
And so I end this to watch my wife fight another day - to go to war with an enemy we see every six months in MRI’s, a powerful enemy, deceptively strong, but one that I am confident can be defeated in a fight with Sherri. It is a fight she has to win, she plans to win, because the alternative is just unthinkable.
Cancer is her kryptonite - as Superman never fell to kryptonite, so I believe Sherri will never fall to cancer. After all, she’s a superhero.
By John H. Foote
Special to Focus on Scugog
Personalities
