In Sun City Center,if you need information, ask a golfer. That's how Gloria found her way to H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute.
When her lung cancer was diagnosed in the spring of 2004,the news came as a shock. "In my life, I have not really ever been ill...being told I had this sickness was so overwhelming."
She didn't tell her elderly mother, who died shortly after the diagnosis, and never knew what her daughter was up against. And for a while, she didn't tell anyone else. She wasn't sure who she would tell. In ten years of living in Sun City Center, she hadn't made many close friends. Her time had been taken up by caring for her mother. Her conversations with physicians and healthcare professionals had been limited, and she had not discussed her diagnosis with friends or family. Reading about her disease was not only difficult due to the medical jargon,but it was depressing. As she searched for a glimmer of hope in her doctor's words or the medical information she had available, she became discouraged.
But things changed. One day, one of her neighbors asked how she was feeling. Gloria remembers that she broke down in tears and replied, "I have lung cancer." From this Sun City Center golfer came the recommendation: Moffitt Cancer Center.
From her first visit,Gloria felt reassured about her choice to be treated at Moffitt."The nurses are so encouraging and full of positive goodness. I swear God has hand-picked every single person working over there."
When the doctors and staff at Moffitt offered her a chance to be part of a clinical trial, Gloria didn't hesitate. The hope and sincerity with which the offer was made, she says, made the decision easy. "It was like someone offering you a chocolate ice cream cone with two scoops." Gloria had never had a reason to think about clinical trials before she got sick. What she had heard about them wasn't too inviting -- they seemed like a last resort for patients who were close to death. But, because she had developed a relationship with the staff at Moffitt, the trial sounded like a new ray of hope.
Besides their recommendation of Moffitt, Gloria's friends showed her that no matter how small she figured her world seemed, she had more friends and more support than she thought. When Gloria told her neighbor that she didn't think her car was in good enough shape for regular trips to Moffitt, the neighbor volunteered to drive her. And she did -- once a week at first, then twice a month, and currently every three months for a CT scan.
The year or so since her diagnosis has been filled with physical and emotional challenges. Chemotherapy thinned her hair, gave her unsightly rashes, and left her feeling very tired. Five days after her surgery, Hurricane Jeanne struck Florida, and she spent the night in the bathroom with her cat. Because of the surgery, she has spent more time indoors than an avid walker and gardener would prefer.
For now, she can relax, and sometimes nap, in her favorite chair by a big picture window. At the age of 69, she feels she has much more gardening left to do, and she's looking forward to it. "I feel I am more positive about life than I used to be," she says. At the beginning, when she was first diagnosed, she didn't expect to be looking out her window the following year. Moffitt, the clinical trial, and the treatment therapy gave her a new perspective.
She maintains her positive view of life by staying mentally flexible and by recognizing that she has the power to choose what is important, what to accept and what to let go.Today, a year after her surgery, many prayers and several hurricanes later, she is feeling strong. "In my head,I feel 45."
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