The Belmont Vision

ISSUE: 11/29/07 > Features > life isn't over, it's just different

Photos Courtesy of Sarah Conley

Sarah Conley’s smile remains the same though her long, dark hair is gone, one of the side effects of the chemotherapy she is taking for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She was diagnosed with the cancer, which attacks the body’s immune system, in September, just three months after she graduated from Belmon’s commercial music program.

A young lady in a teal blouse and trendy jeans sat at a table in the middle of Bongo Java scribbling something on a piece of paper. People milled around her, passed her, smiled at her occasionally and she smiled back. Her face was bright and warm. She seemed normal to them. She would seem normal to anyone who didn’t know.

Nobody could tell that Sarah Conley was bald beneath her flattering brunette wig, or that she was dreading the poisonous chemicals that she would have to take intravenously in two days for about six hours. Nobody knew that her life as she had known it had crashed to a halt just two months ago when she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system (essentially, a cancer of the immune system).

At the beginning of January this year, about seven months after she graduated from Belmont’s commercial music program, Conley made a pact with herself to make it a healthier year. She trained and ran two half marathons before July and lost about 20 pounds.

Then came the sudden tiredness, then some medical tests, and then the phone call from her doctor while she was at work at Christ Church.

“I knew. I just had this premonition that it wasn’t mono,” Conley said. “That’s why I was as calm as I was when [my doctor] told me. I was as prepared as I ever could have been, but you can’t ever really be prepared for that kind of news.”

He told her there was a large tumor around her heart and they would run more tests before they reached a final diagnosis. While they did this, all she could do was wait.

“Everything changed in a moment. I knew that my life would never be the same,” Conley said. “During that time of waiting and knowing that I really [wasn’t in] control, all I could do was trust God.”

On Sept. 12, her final non-Hodgkins lymphoma diagnosis had her worried.

“I knew that if you were going to have one, you would rather have Hodgkins [than non-Hodgkins],” Conley said. “I knew that was the more treatable of the two.”

The National Cancer Institute says 63,190 people were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma this year. That’s about 55,000 more than the 8,190 diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The number of non-Hodgkins deaths this year has also outnumbered Hodgkins-caused deaths by 17,590 cases.

Getting There

On December 5 in MPAC, Sarah Conley, along with some Belmont students and grads will hold a benefit concert to raise awareness about cancer. Belmont music business professor David Tough who, like Conley, has non-Hodgkins lymphoma, will run sound. Conley will also show a documentary about her journey with cancer titled, “How You Live.” A silent auction begins at 6 p.m., doors open at 6:30 for the concert, and the show begins at 7 p.m.

Conley, who, as a child watched both her parents struggle with Hodgkins lymphoma, was transported back to listening to them discuss the disease and how, at least, they got the “better cancer.”

Then she balked.

“I just really struggled with it, thinking, ‘I don’t want to die. I’m too young. I don’t want this to be over,’” she said.

A lot of Conley’s discouragement through cancer came from fearing death and the loss of control of her life.

“I have goals, I have dreams. I’m the first one in my family to go to college. Now I’m at the beginning of my career and I feel like somebody has come in and stolen part of my life,” Conley said. “And it’s violating because I was doing all the right things: living right, doing right, taking care of myself and making great progress.”

Then she made her peace with it.

“As Christians we’re always taught that God is in control and so when the rubber meets the road and you’re faced with that, you have to ask, ‘Do I really buy into that?’” Conley said. “Because if I do then I’m saying that I trust him and that I’m going to let him be in control. And whatever the outcome is, however this story’s going to turn out, it’s OK. It’s OK because I trust him with my life.”

Even though Conley may have the “less desirable” cancer, she has the advantage of having walked though the sickness with her parents and the power of support groups.

While going for her second chemotherapy session, Conley met a 28-year-old woman who was going in for her last dose of chemo. She connected Conley with the young adult group at Nashville’s Gilda’s Club.

“There’s something really neat about meeting other people who are struggling,” Conley said.

These were people who understood the dread Conley felt about her chemo sessions. They understood the constant tiredness, nausea and insomnia. They understood the feeling of repulse, looking in the mirror and, despite complements from people about how good they looked, not liking the bald, heavier person that looked back at them. They had all stared the possibility of death square in the eye and had chosen to live, just like Conley.

It was at one of these meetings that Conley met a Belmont music business professor, David Tough, who had just completed treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“I never had anything wrong with me health wise, really,” Tough said. “I just went to the emergency room one day because I had some swelling in my neck and they said, ‘Something’s pressing on your heart and your blood’s not going back in,’ and I was like, ‘Uh-oh.’”

Tough got over the shock, and as soon as he got his diagnosis he was “ready to deal with it.”

Conley was thrilled not only to have found a group of people who really got her, but also to find someone from Belmont who just got done with treatment for the same kind of cancer she had.

Tough, like Conley, sought support after his diagnosis. He headed for his computer.

“The main thing is knowing you’re not alone,” Tough said. “So, just reading blogs [of people who were struggling or had struggled with cancer] and stuff on the internet really helped me. I think that’s the good thing [about] technology.”

According to Tough, a good support system, which, in his case, was his faith, family and friends, can do wonders in getting through the ordeal.

Conley agrees. While her family is in Texas, she has had to deal with the cancer without them being physically present.

“I’ve realized how good people are,” Conley said. “My family’s 800 miles away, but I have never felt alone.”

She has never gone by herself to a chemo session.

While researching the disease, Tough, who was diagnosed in March, realized that cancer seems to be on the rise in young people, and he’s right.

According to the American Cancer Society, the rates of some cancers like skin cancer and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma that affects the white blood cells are on the rise in people of less than 40 years. Meanwhile, the National Cancer Institute says that even though survival rates have increased in middle-aged and older people, there has not been as significant an increase in people between the ages of 15 and 39 in more than 20 years.

Still, the 31-year-old assistant professor is optimistic about where cancer treatment is at the moment.

“I think… 30 years ago when you heard the word “cancer,” it was a death sentence,” Tough said. “[Because] there have been so many changes that have happened even in the last 10 years in medicine, now it’s more like a sickness or a disease, but a lot of people probably haven’t changed that in their minds yet.”

Tough has used his survival as an opportunity to talk to people about his faith and how God and other people helped him through cancer through his blog, www.davetough.blogspot.com, where he chronicled his struggle with cancer all the way to his last radiation treatment.

In May, Tough was in the hospital for about a month after a treatment.

When chemotherapy is administered, it destroys not only the cancer cells, but also other normally functioning cells in the body. With all other things being equal – no complications such as plummeting blood cell counts – it takes the body about three weeks to regain strength and replace the destroyed cells before another dose of toxins is slowly let back in through intravenous tubes over the period of five-six hours. Because the chemo depletes the white blood cells, the immune system is weakened and patients become more susceptible to diseases. Many cancer survivors die from this lowered immune system.

For that month, Tough was on a ventilator, fighting pneumonia and, finally when he was healed, had to relearn walking after being bedridden for so long.

Conley and Tough, both young and diagnosed with the same kind of cancer the same year have also come to the same conclusions about certain things concerning the disease:

No. 1: it’s about time to raise more awareness about the reality of cancer among people their age. “I wouldn’t change anything I’ve been through,” Conley said. “I kind of feel honored to walk through this and… do whatever I can to raise awareness about cancer and help raise funds for organizations researching cures.”

No. 2: health insurance is necessary for everyone. Each of Conley’s treatments costs $16,000 but her insurance covers 80 percent. Even at that, she will still end up paying 20 percent: a little more than $30,000.

No. 3: cancer, for both survivors, has brought people together in their lives. For Tough, it’s through his blog on the internet, and for Conley, it’s her family. She talked to her father on the phone after not speaking to him for some time. It was good, she said, even if all they talked about was cancer. She had missed him.

And No. 4: the realization that life is here and life is now.

“It’s hard when you’re young to realize life is finite, and you tend to plan out a long time in advance,” Tough said. “Sometimes you have to sit back and say, ‘OK, maybe that’s not what God meant for my life, maybe it’s some other direction.’”

After dealing with the what-ifs and struggling with everything that came with her cancer, Conley is finally resilient.

“I’ve already dealt with that stuff,” she said. “So now it’s time to live and live in every moment.”

November 29, 2007