What's Your Story?

Sara Sloop, Board Secretary, shares her story with our readers

When I was just a few months old, my mom was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Of course, I was too young to remember anything about this, but growing up, my mom talked about her journey often. I didn’t know much about cancer other than it sounded terrifying and easily became one of my worst fears.

Fast forward 33 years and I heard those dreaded words: “You have stage 2 breast cancer”. Not only did I have cancer, but it was an aggressive form that was hard to treat and had a high recurrence rate. I had two small kids at home, a full-time job, and a husband working nights. I thought to myself, how in the world am I going to be able to handle my treatment plan on top of regular daily life? What was scarier was the thought of not being here for my family when they needed me most.

After the initial shock wore off, I put on my best warrior face and powered through 16 rounds of chemo, immunotherapy, and 3 surgeries in just over a year. I am now cancer-free by the grace of God and my awesome medical team. While waiting for the official diagnosis, I prayed that God would use me to help others, no matter what my outcome. Cancer is so complex and hard to understand, and the unknowns are absolutely terrifying. I just want to be a light to someone in what could easily be one of the darkest times in their life. I want to spread awareness and let others know they are not alone in this fight. Cancer is big, but God is bigger!