How one woman is fighting back

The world stopped. That’s how Helen Taylor felt on the day in December 2004 when she picked up her ringing phone at work and learned that her recent colonoscopy had turned up cancer.

Two doctors had told the 47-year-old mother of two that the rectal bleeding she was experiencing was probably due to hemorrhoids. There was no history of colon cancer in her family, and the colon¬oscopy was something she’d pushed for, against the advice of her doctors. But Taylor, a Classified Operations Manager who taught kickboxing as a hobby and was preparing for a black belt in karate, knew she just didn’t feel right.

So when the phone rang with this terrible news, Taylor was caught in a time warp. Shocked and angry, she drove home crying, but made up her mind that she’d do everything she could to defeat this disease. Once she got to her home in Mansfield, Mass., Taylor got busy planning to live.

“I found a really good surgeon. He said to me, ‘You have cancer. We’re going to take it out.’?”

In fact, the doctor removed a tumor and one foot of her colon. Taylor was relieved that the cancer hadn’t spread beyond her colon, that she would need no follow-up therapy and would have regular bowel function. She resumed her life.

But in July of 2005, while vacationing on Cape Cod with her family, Taylor woke up with stomach pains so severe that she landed in the hospital, where she had emergency surgery to repair scar tissue that had wrapped itself around her bowel.

Remarkably, Taylor bounced back and began training to run three miles in less than 24 minutes, a piece of the black belt requirement. But in October she noticed that her stomach was very bloated, and she returned to her doctor. On Halloween of 2005, Taylor learned that the colon cancer was back, this time manifesting as a tumor on her liver and spots on her ovaries and her abdomen.

“Do I buy a casket?” she asked her doctor. He told her that the cancer was treatable, but that in the end, it usually wins. While her younger son rang doorbells for trick-or-treat, she stood behind him, crying in the dark.

“After I cried, I remember thinking, ‘No way. I’m going to decide who wins,’?” says Taylor, now 50. She found a new doctor at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who gave her hope. Right after Thanksgiving, she began an aggressive six-month chemotherapy treatment. But the weekend before it started, she completed her three-mile run in 23 minutes and 14 seconds. “I woke up that morning and decided, just for that day, I didn’t have cancer—I just wanted to concentrate on running,” she says. Completing that race left her feeling strong and even more determined. That was a good thing, because there were tough times ahead.

“I went through every emotion,” she says. “At night I visualized the tumor—I saw a PacMan eating away at it. Sometimes, I imagined karate-kicking it.”

Her sons, Christopher (now 17) and Matthew (14), were a great support, as was her husband. Friends and co-workers supplied meals, entertainment, and lots of good cheer. “I couldn’t have done it without them,” says Taylor.

By the end of the six-month course of chemo, the tumors on Taylor’s ovaries and abdomen were either invisible or gone. The tumor on her liver had shrunk to less than half its original size. And it hasn’t grown since.

Today, Taylor is on oral chemotherapy that involves taking four pills each day for two weeks at a time, followed by one week off. She got her black belt in karate last year and has made it her business to tell everyone her cancer story.

“Things are going really well now,” she concludes. “I’m taking the best care of myself that I can—I drink a lot of water, eat healthy, take supplements, pray a lot, and hope for the best. I feel pretty strong. I really do. I plan on being around for a long time to see my sons grow. I know that’s up to God, but I believe He’s fighting for me, too.”