Finding Hope in the Face of Cancer

Your Stories: Conquering Cancer

Life doesn’t stop when devastating things happen. Six-time cancer survivor Brittany Sullivan and her husband, John, know this all too well. Brittany’s first diagnosis came at age 3 and her most recent when she was 15 weeks pregnant. How do a husband and wife keep going when cancer lies in the shadows of their most joyous moments?The Sullivans rest in their faith, the miracles uncovered by modern medicine, and the divine direction of a pink Post-It note to conquer the fears of cancer without losing the hope that sustains their family.

Life doesn't stop when devastating things happen. Six-time cancer survivor Brittany Sullivan and her husband John know this all too well. Brittany's first diagnosis came at age three and her most recent when she was 15 weeks pregnant.

How do a husband and wife keep going when cancer lies in the shadows of their most joyous moments? The Sullivans rest in their faith, the miracles uncovered by modern medicine, and the divine direction of a pink Post-It note to conquer the fears of cancer without losing the hope that sustains their family.

My first diagnosis was right before I turned three years old. I had a tumor on my tongue. I had it removed. Then had several other recurrences when I was 6 and 17, 21.

Yeah. And the one when you were 21 is special to me.

John and I had just started dating. And I had a very small tumor removed from my lung. And so he got to be a part of that recovery. And I saw in him his ability to be a caregiver, his compassion, and his tenderness. And man, that really meant a lot to me after the experiences that I had had in my life. And it spoke love to me in a way that I could understand it.

So let's go back to November of 2012. We found this tumor in my heart while I was 15 weeks pregnant.

Do you remember what we did the night after we came home from Dr. Davis' office? I say came home. We left there.

We didn't want to go home. We weren't ready to. Because we knew we would just go home and cry. And so we--

Which we would get to--

Yeah.

--eventually.

Yeah, we did eventually do that. But we went to a Japanese steak house. Because I was pregnant and I was craving fried rice. And we walked in. And I was crying.

And I went to the bathroom. And there was a Post-It note on the back of the stall that I chose. It was bright neon pink.

And it said the words, "Do not be afraid" appear in the Bible 365 times. And so I started crying some more. Because what a little gift and treasure!

So we made it far enough past when the baby would be viable. Our sweet girl had had time to grow and develop. So at 34 weeks we delivered Carly Jean.

And she was completely healthy. She was teeny, teeny, tiny. But she was great. And she's just been this, like, beam of joy and goodness. And so in a way, that pregnancy saved my life. Otherwise, we wouldn't have known about the tumor in my heart.

But the story really takes another weird twist.

Yes. Went in for an appointment, and Dr. Katie walked in kind of shaky. And she said, I do not have good news for you. It has spread. I want you to go to Miami. Like, it was one sentence.

Just like that.

There was a clinical trial in Miami.

Before we could get on the clinical trial, we needed to have a brain scan done.

And the scan revealed cancer in my brain, so--

Devastating.

Yes. I really did not want to have brain radiation. But when that's the only option, you do it. Life doesn't stop when devastating things happen.

I was teaching during that time every day. So I kept going. I think I was teaching the reproduction system during that time.

Talk about how it felt to see your tumors responding.

After nine months, after my chest, abdomen, and pelvis scans, there is only 5 millimeters of cancer left. And all of the cancer in my brain is either shrinking or gone. It's humbling. It's exciting.

I feel like every time I get good news I do this, like, enormous happy dance in my brain that doesn't always come out of my body, because I'm tired from cancer treatments. But man, it's so exciting.

We never felt alone. We had an amazing community surrounding us. We often felt scared.

Yeah.

But we never felt, like, hopeless. And that's how we've made it, is we've always had hope. And I feel like it is my job to share that.

The Conquer Cancer Foundation's mission is to conquer cancer worldwide by funding breakthrough research and sharing cutting edge knowledge. To learn more about the participants in this session and others like it, please visit Conquer.org/StoryCorps. Recorded and produced by StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to preserve and share humanity's stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world. Learn more at StoryCorps.org.