Marble Debbie Sanders knows what fighting feels like. She also knows how to survive a battle. In 1995, she was diagnosed with endometriosis.
Endometriosis is defined as a chronic, often painful disease where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus, typically on pelvic organs like ovaries and fallopian tubes. It causes inflammation, scar tissue and severe pain. Sanders eventually had surgery to remove everything.
Ten years later, and after being newly married, she began suffering with extreme pain.
“Something was really off,” she said.
Sanders would eat something and her ears would burn. She would have heart palpitations and suffer through extreme diarrhea. “It was horrible,” she said.
She went to the doctor, only to be told that it was from the stress caused by having teenagers. She didn’t get better and, in fact, her mother saw her decline and suggested she return to the doctor as she was always ill.
After tests at Mayo Clinic, Sanders was informed that she had carcinoid cancer. She had a lot of tumors, with 11 alone being in her liver. Doctors had no idea just how many tumors she actually had. They wanted to perform immediate surgery and put her on the list for a liver transplant. Fortunately, she did not need the transplant.
After the surgery, everything appeared to be OK. However, back at the hotel, she began having internal bleeding that nearly ended her life.
While her husband, Larry, was signing the paperwork that would release the hospital from liability should she not survive the surgery, a woman unknown to Debbie walked into her room. She began praying for her. A short time later, the bleeding stopped.
Sanders was released from the hospital. Everything appeared to be OK until a couple of years later, when the tumors returned. By the 10th year, Sanders was back doing chemotherapy, shots, radiation, laser therapy and other treatments.
Sanders had so much radiation in her body that she had to carry around a paper starting that she was not carrying a bomb, but that her high levels of radiation were due to cancer treatments.
Due to the radiation in her body, she could not be around children or small animals for 3-5 days after her treatment and needed to wear disposal clothing during radiation treatments in case of accidents so the radioactive material would not spread. The nurse attaching the medicine filled I.V. wore hazmat-like attire.
At one point, she was considered to be cancer free.
“The radiation does help. It makes it go away enough to where it gives me a few more years. Unfortunately, a spot they previously thought was scar tissue was actually a tumor that has returned and grown. So, it didn’t go away.” Sanders said.
She was informed that they had removed everything they could see and feel, but she had hundreds of sand-like tumors, making it virtually impossible to get them all.
“At 61, I’m still here, so I take each day as God gives me and I try to live life the best that I can,” she said with a positive voice.
Sanders gives God all the credit for still being alive today.
“This journey through cancer has actually made Larry and my relationship tighter because it’s made us stronger in our holding on to God. We’ve been able to stand united in this fight,” she said.
She explained how radiation treatments made her feel.
“It zaps your energy, and I lost some hair. You lose your appetite and memory. My words don’t work like they used to. It literally wipes you out,” she said. “Chemo was the worst. I would not do chemo ever again. It made all of my hair fall out, I had to get wigs. When you look in the shower at the clumps of hair; I lost it and I cried.”
Upon reflecting, Sanders said with a bit of laughter, “You wear a cap under the wig to keep it in place. I remember that I could feel the cap slipping up, and I knew the wig was next to flip off if I didn’t excuse myself so I could go and fix it.”
Cancer treatments are expensive. According to Sanders, her shots cost between $14,000 and $17,000 per injection.
Her advice to others struggling with health issues is, “You have to keep your eyes focused on God and living and do the best you can with your walk despite the illness. You can’t let it envelop you. It’s easy to get locked up in the medical stuff but then you need to put it down and go live your life. However long it is, don’t just focus on the illness. There’s life all around you, go and live it,” Sanders said.
Despite having cancer she enjoys making and selling her soaps under High Bar Soap Company as well as painting and gardening. She also spends time with her husband, grandchildren, six cows, a dog, a cat and 13 chickens.