Hope for the Cancer+ Journey Podcast

Announcer: You are not alone on your cancer journey. Welcome to Hope for the Cancer Journey Podcast. I'm your host, Debbie Taylor Williams, a stage three lung cancer survivor. A cancer diagnosis is shocking and scary, but there is hope, as you'll hear from people's stories of their journey, tips for navigating the medical world, and the unwavering hope you can have in Christ. Let's walk this path together.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Welcome to Hope for the Cancer Journey. I'm your host, Debbie Taylor Williams. Today, we're excited to welcome Sharon Purswell. I'm blessed to know Sharon and her husband, Randy, through church. Sharon and Randy have been married for 42 years. Prior to Sharon retiring, she worked in corporate America for 39 years as a senior administrative assistant. She's here today to share her cancer journey and provide you with hope along the way.

Welcome, Sharon.

Sharon Purswell: Thank you. And thank you so much for having me. I just love telling what God has done for me.

Debbie Taylor Williams: That's great. And Sharon, if you would, could you begin by sharing with us how you first discovered something was wrong and what was your immediate reaction when the word was said to you, cancer?

Sharon Purswell: Well, I'm happy to share this. My incident occurred in the middle of the night. I got out of bed and I couldn't walk in my right leg only. My left leg would move, but my right leg would not, and it was excruciatingly painful. My husband heard me call out to him, and he was immediately up. He said, "I could tell by the sound of that cry it was bad." And so he immediately called for the local ER to come.

And they did, and they quickly whisked me away and took me to the local hospital. At that point, they were just trying to get me through the middle of the night till the doctors could be there. Next morning, the doctor was there and it was already nearly morning. It was like 3 or 4 a.m. And he saw me, went away, gave me a diagnosis that I felt strongly was incorrect because he didn't know I had cared for someone for three years with that same cancer, so I was very familiar. And I said, "I do not think that's right. I probably, I could, I may have some other cancer, but it is not that one." So the next thing I know, I was whisked to a hospital in San Antonio. They had me for 48 hours and they found the correct one. That first diagnosis was just, I think, there was no testing done because it was in the middle of the night, I suppose.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Sharon, why would the doctor have even mentioned a particular cancer if no testing had been done? That doesn't seem to make sense to me.

Sharon Purswell: That's exactly what my oncologist told me when I got to him. How would any doctor do that? Why would any doctor do that? It makes no sense. But I was just grateful that it was what I had had. I'm in remission, as you may know, but the other was a very unpleasant cancer. And so I feel blessed that multiple myeloma was reserved for me.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Most people wouldn't say they felt blessed that multiple myeloma was reserved for them, but I am familiar with your story and I'm glad the listeners can hear it. So please continue with your immediate reaction after knowing it wasn't the right one, but when it was confirmed you have cancer. What was your reaction?

Sharon Purswell: Well, I did not actually find out until two days before Christmas. So when I finally got the call, because the hospital didn't give it to me, they wanted to go through my primary care physician for him to deliver the news. And so he was on vacation, but he came in on December 23rd and he immediately called. I had never heard of multiple myeloma at that very moment. I didn't know what it was. But my husband looked it up. He heard me talking with him. He heard him talking to me as well. So he looked it up. So we didn't go any further until I got off the phone.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Sharon, there may be some listeners who don't know what multiple myeloma is. Would you mind taking a moment to explain?

Sharon Purswell: Sure. You're not alone. Many people don't. It is a blood cancer and it is in the same department as leukemia and lymphoma. So it's a blood cancer.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Okay. So we'll hear more about that, I'm sure, as we go along. What was the hardest part of you breaking the news to family and friends?

Sharon Purswell: The very hardest part was to my sister. And the reason why, we had already lost our parents and one sister. And the one sister was lost three years before me. And it was still fresh for both of us. And so I knew my sister was going to be devastated. And she was.

Debbie Taylor Williams: I had that experience with my sisters, my two sisters, but my oldest sister, she just couldn't believe it. It broke her heart.

Sharon Purswell: Yes. Yes, that's how my baby sister was. But she was there. She was there, and we got through it together.

Debbie Taylor Williams: That's great. That is. Cancer forces patients into a world of complex medical decisions. How did you learn to become your own advocate and proceed after having one wrong diagnosis and then getting this multiple myeloma diagnosis? And tell us about your journey, what all that entailed for you treatment-wise.

Sharon Purswell: It was really not difficult at all because after the first misdiagnosis and after the things that he just informed me of, it was like I knew I could trust him because they had it together. And so I may sound silly, I hope it gives somebody a chuckle, but I've never been a nurse, I've never been a doctor. Why would I want to carry that heaviness when I can't change anything? I'm in God's hands and their hands, and my job was to just do what they say and trust God with the rest. It had to be that way or we can go bonkers.

Debbie Taylor Williams: So what was the first thing they told you you needed to do? What did that look like?

Sharon Purswell: Well, the first phase of it, I was actually at MD Anderson Houston. And once they ran enough tests, which was three weeks' worth, they concluded we have to get started soon. And I said, "Then can I do it somewhere else?" Because I was at a point where the drive and the ride was totally exhausting for me. And they said, "Absolutely!" They looked so excited for me because my doctor at MD Anderson Houston had worked with my oncologist that she referred me to in San Antonio, Texas, which is where the greatest medical care for me, because it's an MD Anderson affiliated clinic.

Great. So it just worked out beautifully. Can you see just from hearing my story how I can see how God's hand was already there before I ever arrived at MD Anderson Houston?

Debbie Taylor Williams: Yes. Yes. So what was your treatment?

Sharon Purswell: My treatment was chemo. And I had two separate chemos two days a week. And that went on for about, at the four-week month, things looked really, really good. My doctor was elated. By six weeks into it, it stopped working. And he said, "I'll get back with you," which I knew that meant he had some digging to do.

So we went to another chemo. It worked about four weeks and it stopped. And we did that dance for probably about four months, and every one of them failed. And I still, I guess I'm just a weird duck, but I just didn't make myself go crazy or worry about it or shed a tear, quite honestly.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Really?

Sharon Purswell: That is correct. And I'm not trying to make anybody think that I'm different than them and I'm a hero because if I can't do anything about it and it's way bigger than I'll ever be, why did I want to carry around that bag of rocks? Because all they were going to be was heavy. And I could not do that because my husband cried all the time. Okay. I had to be strong for him and I had to be strong for my sister. And it worked for me.

And then I started noticing the people in the clinic. There were people that looked different from me.

Debbie Taylor Williams: What do you mean looked different?

Sharon Purswell: The faces were laden with pain, they were laden with fear, and I didn't feel either of those.

Debbie Taylor Williams: What a blessing. That was a blessing that you didn't feel that overwhelming fear that I would think would be common.

Sharon Purswell: I really felt like, and I think it happened because I had such a wonderful nurse. The very first day of treatment, she started my IV and within, I'd say, three to five minutes, I called her name. I said, "I need you back. I'm about to be sick." And she said, "I know exactly what it is. Hold on." And she called my doctor from the phone in her pocket. And she said, "Miss Purswell needs da-da-da and da-da-da." So it was changed, and I've not been that kind of sick since.

Debbie Taylor Williams: That's wonderful.

Sharon Purswell: And so why wouldn't I trust somebody that on a dime knew exactly why I was getting nauseous?

Debbie Taylor Williams: Yes. Yes. So you had the chemo, it didn't work. You went to a different chemo after it stopped working, and went to a different chemo. After all these chemos, did you finally land on one that worked?

Sharon Purswell: No, ma'am.

Debbie Taylor Williams: So what happened then at that point? And how long into your cancer journey had it been?

Sharon Purswell: That was easily at probably four months. And before I answer this, I just want to tell the listeners that whenever you've been delayed, let me just say this and I hope by the end of this you understand: time is really on your side because God's at work. Because what happened next for me was I was able to get something that most people had never heard, and even to this day when I give them the name of it, they go, "What?"

But I was able eventually, eventually, because I did get a stem cell transplant first. I almost forgot about that. But that wasn't enough. That was not enough either. So it was probably more into eight months.

Debbie Taylor Williams: But tell us about the stem cell transplant in case we have listeners who don't know what that is.

Sharon Purswell: For many people, it works. Mine, mine was too advanced that it couldn't really do, it couldn't push me across. It did some good, but it wasn't enough. And the stem cell is the stem cell transplant that they start with first.

Debbie Taylor Williams: But what is a stem cell transplant?

Sharon Purswell: It is where they send you to an apheresis lab where they do something very close to a dialysis in that they are not taking the dialysis from my kidneys by any means, but they can use that equipment to extract my cells. So since this is a blood cancer, they go for the cells because that's where the cancer is. So they withdraw my cells. I don't get anybody else's cells, and they play with them and then they put them back in. But the first round didn't do enough. So I went back to the chemo realm for a little bit. Still, nothing after so many weeks. Four weeks is roughly what it was each time.

So we went back and my doctor started talking with me about CAR T-cell. And I'm like, "You are what?" Sound like a Model T car. What is this? And as it turns out, it was the dream. But if you'll remember I said waiting works for you sometimes. It's not always your enemy. And so I trusted what was going on. As it turns out, I couldn't get the trial. It was too late because they only made up so much serum and they were out. So my doctor was very disappointed and I guess I was a little disappointed, but it was what it was. So we moved forward, right?

So maybe a month or so passed, maybe two, and I got the word. We're about to do this thing. We've got some serum for you.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Great. Bet you were excited and relieved.

Sharon Purswell: I was. And I didn't have anything to fear because I already knew what withdrawing my blood cells was like. But this is really exciting. When I went in and had the second batch of my cells withdrawn, when I returned for the CAR T-cell transplant, first procedure is withdrawing the cells again. It was even better than the first time. But what they do, this is the exciting part, is this time through the CAR T-cell therapy that they had discovered, was they were sent to a lab in another state where in my mind, God created this brilliant man that figured out that he can take a patient's cells and have them converted into, and these are the words my doctor used, little Pac-Men that were killers. And they floated in my body and if they found a cancerous cell, they zapped it like the game.

Debbie Taylor Williams: My goodness.

Sharon Purswell: And so it's very exciting. It's very unusual sounding. If you're scratching your head, I get it. I understand. But it worked. Praise God, it worked. And it worked immediately.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Sharon, how wonderful.

Sharon Purswell: And when I got back into a routine, I was checked every time I went, and every time I went they had no active cells that were cancerous active in my body any longer. And I'm happy to tell you today that I'm getting very close to the third year of that.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Sharon, congratulations. That gives me goosebumps. I'm so happy for you.

Sharon Purswell: You know, it still gives me goosebumps. And also I just kind of sometimes have fun when I see a new doctor that's not in the cancer world. I tell him, "Now you've got to be real careful with me," and he looks at me kind of funny. And I said, "Well, I'm a little bionic, and I don't know that I might just go mad."

Debbie Taylor Williams: That's a good way to break it to a new doc.

Sharon Purswell: And then of course they're all excited and want to know too and I'm always happy to share that with anyone. But it has been the dream of a lifetime to get this transplant. And all things considered, it's easy peasy. Yes, there's some, as I say, buzz on it before you get to the victory line with all the testing that you have to go through once again and it's lengthy, but well worth it. Well worth it.

Debbie Taylor Williams: That's good news for someone. So how does that process happen? Do you lie in a hospital bed and does it take days or hours while they're doing this dialysis extracting your cells?

Sharon Purswell: The extraction takes a matter of hours. The putting them back in takes a matter of no more than five minutes. They can put them in faster than they can take them out.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Was it painful?

Sharon Purswell: Not at all.

Debbie Taylor Williams: That is such good news for our listeners in case anyone is looking at this as a possible procedure.

Sharon Purswell: That's why today I can surely say multiple myeloma was my friend because it not only, I had the avenue to get this new technology, but I think this is true of any of us who goes through cancer: there's something God does that's so beautiful in the process.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Talk to me about that a little bit. When you say that there was something beautiful about that, what were the kinds of things that you found were beautiful that you experienced that were positive along the way?

Sharon Purswell: Well, for one thing, God showed me the very first day I had chemo treatment. There was another person in also getting it. And there was not a room full, which is typical nowadays, but it was also during COVID. So we could not be near one another. And I just saw sadness in faces. And it just pressed upon my heart, "Be you, be you, Sharon. Talk to people. Love on them with your words."

Well, I had a book, for example, that very first day and we couldn't get close to each other, but the time came that I needed to excuse myself. So I got my little trusty little cart to go with me, and we stepped up the hall. And so I said to the young lady, "I have a book over in that empty chair, and you're welcome to step over there while I step away. And you're welcome to take that book and enjoy it. Maybe you would want to even read it with your dad so that's something y'all can share together." And she did.

And it came about that I promised her when I would see her next that I would bring her her very own book. And she said, "Oh, ma'am, that won't be necessary. I liked it so much and so did my dad that I've already ordered one from Amazon." And I began to pass them out throughout the clinic as time permitted. I could not because it was COVID just buy them and leave a stack. But I saw how much better it was to get personal with people because they appreciated it. They loved that someone would talk to them, not just somebody come poke them in the arm and be away for a while.

So it was a beautiful thing. And in so doing, you learn that other people really hurt. My cancer wasn't a hideously painful cancer for me. It was prior to diagnosis. It was getting very painful. But it was something that you could tolerate. And so that gave me more flexibility to get out of the bed. Now, I never approached a bed with a patient in it because I respected their territory and what they were going through, of course. But when I could speak, I remember there were several faces every time I would leave the ladies' room. There were about six to eight beds that I could see right then. And so I'd give them a thumbs up and I'd say, "You have this. You've got it, Sharon." And they would smile.

And then one day I met a lady. Looked like she wasn't in great shape. Turns out she had the same cancer as yours truly, but she had some extra health issues that were different than mine. And so she had a really hard time. And she was a great inspiration to me because she was all the time emotionally up, all the time. It was like she never ran down. She was amazing. And she took the time to share her story. And it was very enlightening because she said, "I assure you, who you're talking to today," this is what she said to me, "I was not that person before today." So this has been a blessing to me.

Debbie Taylor Williams: So she experienced a positive transformation of looking beyond herself during that process, it sounds like.

Sharon Purswell: Yes, and her story was much heavier than mine. And I was so in awe, but I knew, and she didn't mind telling me, Jesus was what made the difference for her.

Debbie Taylor Williams: I was going to ask you about that. How did you experience Jesus' presence and providing for you? What encouragement and hope can you give our listeners along that line?

Sharon Purswell: Well, I think that what I've learned the most was what I alluded to a little bit earlier and that was: do not get discouraged when you have to wait. Because medical things do take time and you just can't get discouraged. You can't get discouraged for you, but you can't get discouraged for those around you. If you've got small children or big children, they're looking at you. They're wanting to see hope in your face.

And I wanted to give that to my loved ones too because we had lost so many in such a short time in my family with our parents and a sister and various other things besides that, like best friends and so on and so forth. And so I thought she's in a wheelchair, she's much worse, but she suffered a fall. And she was told she would never walk. Guess what? She can walk.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Oh, well that's wonderful. We can always have hope and believe that God can do things that the medical community may not be able to do.

Sharon Purswell: And her not being able to walk had nothing to do with multiple myeloma. She had an accident in her home. Okay. And that's how they found the multiple myeloma to begin with.

Debbie Taylor Williams: And I hear of that so often where one thing happens and it's what helps the cancer be discovered. Yes, that was in fact my case through cleaning my attic and having a cough related to the dust and my allergic reaction, and that's how my lung cancer was discovered. Yes. So God is watching out for us, isn't He?

Sharon Purswell: He definitely is. And you know, in sickness and in health.