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At 19, Petty was a busy
student at the University of Toledo. Her future seemed
bright and unobstructed as she looked forward to completing
her undergraduate degree and going on to medical school. She
remembers the moment she knew that something wasn’t right.
“I just remember being
very tired and trying to get through work and classes,” she
said. “I just chalked it up to my schedule because I was
taking molecular genetics, organic chemistry and calculus
and maybe one or two other prerequisite classes at the time
and I was also working as a resident advisor at UT. And then
I felt a lump on the side of my neck. It was kind of
painful, but it wasn’t that big at first.”
She says that because she
had previously experienced a swollen lymph node under her
arm that had turned out to be nothing, she didn’t pay too
much attention to this one and continued with her hectic
schedule until an incident prompted her to have it checked
out.
“It’s funny because one
day we were going to have an exam, and I knew that I wasn’t
going to do well, so I decided to go to the doctor at school
and have that lump checked. It would give me an excuse for
missing that exam,” said Petty.
“They gave me some
medicine and told me to go see my primary care physician.”
Her PCP ran some tests and ruled out some potential
possibilities before performing a biopsy.
“The lump was sticking out
by that time,” she recalled. “And they poked a needle in my
neck to take a sample.”
That’s when the ruse that
had offered a reprieve from a college exam became serious.
The doctor called Petty’s mom- Clara Petty, who is the
executive director of the Monroe Street Neighborhood Center-
to say that they had received the results of the biopsy.
“I remember that the
doctor called my mom,” Petty said. “I don’t know why she
called my mom and not me, but she told us to come to the
office at 6 o’clock that evening. I knew that the office was
closed, so I already knew that it was bad.”
It was during that after
hours visit that Petty and her mom learned the results of
her biopsy- malignant squamous cell carcinoma. Petty had a
cancer that is typically found in the outer layers of the
skin and the mucous membranes.
She was sent to a
specialist for more testing where there she received a more
conclusive diagnosis of stage 4 nasopharyngeal cancer. The
tumor was seated in her nasopharynx, which is located in the
upper part of the throat at the base of the skull. And the
stage 4 diagnosis indicated that the cancer had either
spread to other areas of her body or that cancer cells had
been found in her lymph nodes. Petty says it was the latter.
“I didn’t really cry,” she
said. “I think I had maybe one tear and then I just stopped.
In fact, I wasn’t really thinking anything- I don’t think it
had hit me.”
Petty dropped out of
school to seek treatment, but she initially rejected the
idea of traditional chemotherapy opting instead for an
alternative treatment method. She says that she was inspired
to revisit the vegan lifestyle she had attempted when she
was 17 – limiting the sugar, dairy and chemicals in her
diet. “Your body is acidic and the cancer feeds off of
acid,” said Petty. “So if you don’t give the cancer cells
what they need, they will die off. That’s why a lot of
cancer patients go vegan.”
Petty sought out a natural
nutritionist who helped her formulate an exercise routine,
and an organic meal plan that would help detoxify her body.
She also received oxygen therapy treatments, which she
believed would create an unfriendly environment for the
cancer cells. “Cancer survives when there isn’t enough
oxygen,” she said.
But she says that her
doctors and her family continued to push her to consider
chemotherapy. She says that she was hesitant because she
knew that even though the chemo was designed to kill the
cancer, it would have catastrophic consequences on the rest
of her body.
“Everybody kept telling me
that I should do it,” said Petty. “They told me that a lot
of people continue to live years after chemo. I didn’t know
what to do because the tumor was on my jugular vein, and my
doctors said that it could block the vein and I could bleed
to death. So at the end of the day I asked myself do I just
want to live longer or do I want to prevent a potentially
painful bleed and a death.”
And in January of 2014
Petty began chemotherapy. “I started 33 rounds of radiation
and chemotherapy treatments once a week,” she said. “They
started me right away because it took me forever to decide
to do it.”
She says a catheter was
inserted into her chest so that the powerful cancer fighting
drugs could be easily administered. “I was on one of the
more aggressive medications,” she said. And for the
radiation, a special mask was created for her in order to
protect her face, head and neck from 20-30 minute sessions.
“They molded it over my
face,” said Petty “It was green plastic and it was hot. I
had to cut off my locks so the mask would fit, not because
of the chemo. The type of chemo I had didn’t make my hair
fall out. Every time it was the same procedure- they’d check
my name and my date of birth. There were mainly older people
there. They looked sad and they would look at me probably
wondering what I was doing there. They would give me nausea
meds before they hooked me up to the chemo, and it would
take three hours. I would sit on my computer, or eat and my
parents would be there.
“The nurses would put on
smocks and all this stuff because they didn’t want to get
any of the drugs on their clothes. That’s how strong the
drugs were. And during the radiation they would leave the
room and leave me in there with the radiation. I would ask
them why and they would tell me that they were trying to
protect the younger nurses because the radiation could
affect their ability to get pregnant. I wondered would this
stop me from getting pregnant? It just made me think are we
really supposed to be putting this in our bodies and is
there anything else that we can do?”
Petty said that she soon
experienced the consequences of the powerful drugs and the
radiation.
“I got nauseous,” she
said. “Radiation made my throat swell so I couldn’t swallow,
and it also destroyed some of my saliva glands which made my
saliva very thick. I would choke, so I had to have a suction
machine to suction out my mouth constantly. I was always
throwing up and I couldn’t eat so finally I had to get a
feeding tube placed in my stomach.”
Petty said during this
time, she was hospitalized for about two weeks then sent
home with the feeding tube. “My mom had to feed me,” she
said. “The bag would be connected and the milk would come
down into my stomach. It was just weird and I was scared to
move.”
She recalls an incidence
when her commitment to healthy living prompted her to juice
and put it in her feeding tube. “It hurt so bad,” she said.
“I had severe stomach pains and I didn’t try that again.”
In the middle of chemo
treatments, she began experiencing pain in her hip. She says
the doctor dismissed it as a side effect of the treatment,
but the pain got worse. Petty says a biopsy revealed a
second mass in her pelvis and doctors wanted to extend the
radiation. But she postponed any further treatment and
instead took a trip with her godparents to the International
House of Prayer in Kansas City, MO.
“It was just worshipping
for 24 hours,” said Petty. “They were open all day. Everyone
came and went as they pleased. There was just singing and
worshipping all day. It was such a great atmosphere.
I was prophesied over, and
three different people who didn’t know me told me that I
would travel all over the world.”
She also said it was
during this trip that she decided to return to school.
After Missouri, she went
to Miami on a trip that she had originally planned to take
with her friend.
“My friend and I had
planned the trip to Miami but she passed away before the
trip,” said Petty. “She was depressed and had lost her mom
to cancer also, and I believe that she just gave up.”
Petty said she couldn’t
give up – even though it was difficult for her to walk on
the beach in Miami because of her hip pain – and when she
returned home she changed her major and enrolled in online
classes.
“I had all of these
science credits,” she said. “And I fell in love with public
health because it deals with communities and teaching and
training.”
But in between, Petty
suffered another blow – the cancer was now in her chest and
her stomach. This time she was more determined than ever not
to take anymore chemo.
“I did not want to do
chemo. Chemo is bad,” she said. “I know that more natural
medicines are less destructive, and I say less destructive
because my memory has been affected by chemo. There are a
lot of things that I really don’t remember and a lot of
times I just feel like I’m high all the time. I just thought
– is it going to help me or are they only trying to prolong
my life? I had to decide, do I want to live my life sick
from treatment and if I’m going to die anyway, do I die from
chemo or do I die from cancer? Which way would be more
painful? My mom saw what chemo had done to my body and my
health, so she didn’t push me this time to do it. So I
thought, I’m going to get this public health degree and I’m
just going to live my life.”
That’s exactly what she
did – continue to live her life. Petty began classes on
campus that fall. “It was my last year, and my hip was
hurting so bad,” she said. “I was taking Percocet and I
ordered a special cushion to sit on in my classes. I wanted
to graduate before anything happened to me and I also wanted
my parents to be able to say that I graduated.”
In May of this year Petty
did graduate, cum laude, with an undergraduate degree in
public health. But her fight is not yet over. She continues
to battle the tumors in her body with a new
treatment-immunotherapy. Immunotherapy elicits the body’s
own immune system to help fight the malignant invasion of
cancer.
At first, Petty said, she
had a rocky start with the first treatment that included
severe pain and pressure in her pelvis. And then her health
insurance company dropped her leaving her to find a way to
pay the thousands of dollars needed for each treatment.
But she pushes on with
small victories. She says that her tumors have decreased,
and she was recently offered a year’s worth of treatment
from the pharmaceutical company that makes her immunotherapy
drug. She plans to continue treatment until she goes into
remission.
In the meantime, Sydney
Petty tries to live her life like any other 23 year-old who
has just graduated from college. “Right now I’m looking for
a job,” she said. And in August, she plans to take a cruise
to the Grand Cayman Islands, Montego Bay and Cozumel.
But even this strong,
determined 23 year-old who is fighting for her life against
something that is bigger than she is, gets overwhelmed by
her circumstances.
“I haven’t given up but I
have my moments as well,” Petty said. “The other day I got
my scan and I was crying on the table. I was just thinking
I’m sick and tired of this. I hate doing this.”
And yet she holds on. She
hasn’t forgotten that prophesy that was spoken over her, in
Missouri, as she makes plans for her future. “I want to go
to Dubai and to Thailand,” she said. “I’m gonna try and make
that happen in the next few years. And I’m planning to go to
grad school to be a cardiovascular perfusionist.” |
