Relay . . . for life’s sake: Cancer survivors share their stories
By Kate Miller, Record Managing Editor
Posted 11/7/19
The 20th Relay For Life of Warren County is Saturday. The event raises money for local cancer support services, from which many Warren County residents have benefited, or know someone who has. …
This item is available in full to subscribers.
Attention subscribers
We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription.
If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, or you are a print subscriber who had access to our previous wesbite, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you have not yet logged in to your account on this new site.
If you are a current print subscriber and did not have a user account on our previous website, you can set up a free website account by clicking here.
Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
Please log in to continue
Need an account?
Print and web subscribers
If you're a print and web subscriber, but do not yet have an online account, click here to create one.
Online-only subscribers
If you are a digital subscriber with an active, online-only subscription then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site.
Non-subscribers
Click here to see your options for becoming a subscriber.
Relay . . . for life’s sake: Cancer survivors share their stories
Posted
By Kate Miller, Record Managing Editor
The 20th Relay For Life of Warren County is Saturday. The event raises money for local cancer support services, from which many Warren County residents have benefited, or know someone who has.Danielle Kramer, Truxton, and Tiffany Meine, Warrenton, are two young women who have participated in Relay For Life of Warren County and are cancer survivors. Jonesburg resident Stacey Saak is part of a program that receives funding from the Relay For Life.All three have stories that inspire. Stacey SaakSaak was 31, married, working and caring for her 3-year-old daughter.“I was dropping weight and really, really tired. Cancer never crossed my mind. I thought it was from being a mother,” she said.Eventually she was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection but things progressed and her doctor ordered a CT scan.“Once they did the CT scan, they knew what it was,” she said.The diagnosis was renal cancer, a type of cancer that is most common in men in their 60s. “They removed my left kidney and I didn’t have to follow up. I was back to work in four weeks,” she said. No chemotherapy. No radiation. Just surgery. And then it was over and she was left to deal with what had happened. The experience left a remarkable impression.“I was still really scared thinking this cancer would come back,” said Saak. “I was still scared that I was going to die.”To cope with all the emotions, she joined the Inspirations support group led by Al Briggs and Jean Briggs.“I wanted to cry the whole time I was talking to them,” she said. Being a support group, she listened a lot, and that made a difference. “Mine seemed like nothing compared to theirs,” she said. Listening to their dramatic stories of recovery, she learned, “people do beat this. People can survive.”It was a message that she would remember.Three years later, after being treated for renal disease, Saak continued visiting Inspirations and her second child was 5 months old.“I’d been having pressure in the top of my head and in my neck,” Saak said. Next came double vision, and more.“I had this feeling like lightening was going through my body, and when I was having that feeling, I could do nothing about it. I was frozen.”She went to her family doctor who immediately sent her to an eye doctor.“(The eye doctor) gave me this note and said, ‘I want you to go to the emergency room,’ ” she said.At the emergency room, she was told she had a spot on her brain and an ambulance was taking her to St. Louis University Hospital. She needed brain surgery to remove a tumor. The kidney cancer had spread to her brain. After surgery, she lost her memory.“I lost short-term memory for a long time. Years. At first I didn’t’ know I had brain surgery,” Saak said. “It came to a point I knew I wasn’t going to remember. I would write stuff down throughout the day and go back and reread it every day.”The exercise, with help from a memory therapist, eventually helped restore her short-term memory. Danielle KramerDanielle Kramer, 20, Truxton, was 17 in 2014 when she was diagnosed with a form of leukemia.“Originally we thought I had the flu because people in the house had it but they got better and I didn’t,” Kramer said.She went to the doctor and then things moved very quickly.“The first couple months is a blur. Now it’s a part of life,” Kramer said.She underwent 10 months of chemotherapy. The treatments made her sleepy or sick. Sometimes, she said, she could have normal days. The medicines could be different. One gave her a blood clot in her brain, she said.On May 15 she received a bone marrow transplant, which requires her to stay in the hospital for at least 100 days. Kramer’s older brother, Matthew was her donor.Today she still is hospitalized and will miss Relay For Life as she fights infections.“I feel good,” Kramer said. “I have five infections but I don’t feel like I have five infections.” Tiffany MeineTiffany Meine, at 14, had abdominal pain. Doctors suspected an ovarian cyst. The pain persisted and worsened.By January, her mother, Pam Meine, took her to the hospital, where they scheduled surgery.On Feb. 7, during surgery to remove two suspected cysts, doctors instead discovered one large tumor. It was Burkitt’s Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.Tiffany was treated at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis. She went through numerous imagining and laboratory tests, presurgical procedures; several spinal taps, two rounds of chemotherapy and, in one three-week period, four separate surgeries.Because of her treatment schedule, she spent days and weeks at a time at the hospital and away from the classroom.“It affected my schooling,” Tiffany said. “I had to teach myself.”Her family and friends offered support, she said. Now 15, Tiffany has completed chemotherapy and is getting back to her academic and athletic endeavors at school.Tiffany’s mom said the cancer was found because they insisted that something was wrong. Parents, she said, should trust their instincts.“You are the best advocate for your child,” she said.Life after cancerAfter Stacey Saak was treated for cancer in her kidney and cancer in her brain, she was cancer free for a decade. Her chances for a reoccurrence dwindled.Then a CT scan revealed a new tumor in her abdomen. It was removed and she was treated with 13 months of immunotherapy.The side effects included loss of pigmentation. She said her hair turned white and her skin went pale. That was about two years ago.“Now I’m cancer free,” she said.After beating cancer three times, she tells people, “Live every day like it may be your last. Treat people with respect. Smile. Help people. Don’t miss out on the little things throughout the day that are meaningful.”Saak still attends the Inspirations support group and she is a 14-year participant at Relay For Life.The group meets the third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. at Fellowship Baptist Church, 1015 State Highway 47 in Warrenton.
(Left to right) Tiffany Meine, Stacy Saak, and Danielle Kramer. Submitted photos.
