Friday night lights were burning brightly as Sugar Land resident, Tracy Walker, lie on the floor of her home with crippling pain. Her son was ready to take the field for his last football game of the season, but Walker couldn’t even stand.
“My mom had driven up to see my son’s game and when she found me, she said, you need to go to the ER,” Walker said.
The mother of three reluctantly went to the hospital where she underwent a CT scan.
“They said, you have lesions on your pancreas and liver. I didn’t know what that meant,” she said. “They had given me some pain drugs so I was feeling better. And it was my son’s last football game, so I told them I’d go to [the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center] on Monday to get it checked out.”
But after the weekend, Walker was feeling better and decided to just follow up with her primary care doctor who ordered an MRI. The second scan showed fluid in her abdomen. The doctor then sent Walker to see her OB/GYN.
“They also said I needed to go MD Anderson and that they would send my records over to the hospital,” Walker said. “So, I called the hospital and said, ‘let me know when you get the records,’ and sort of put it out of my mind.”
A few weeks passed and Walker forgot about the records and the searing pain she’d endured.
“I’m a single mom and I was worried about getting my numbers done for the first quarter of the year,” she said. “I was working, very stressed out and distracted.”
But she couldn’t shut it out forever. It wasn’t long before the pain returned.
“I called MD Anderson and they had never received my records,” she said. “Three days later they ordered a PET scan, and two days after that they told me I needed to come in and speak with an oncologist.”
Terrified and still feeling poorly, Walker sat down in the oncologists office, waiting to hear the diagnosis.
“[The doctor] said she thought I had pancreatic cancer, but they needed to be sure,” she said.
Walker endured another procedure so the doctor could have a biopsy done on the affected areas. Two weeks later, Walker finally got the results she was dreading.
“She told me I had a rare type of pancreatic cancer. She said, with this type of cancer, surgery is number one,” she said.
Walker is still waiting for the surgery to happen, and as she waits, she prays that the cancer does not spread.
“If I had gone to MD Anderson back in November, maybe I’d only have two spots instead of five,” she said.
But even though her diagnosis is serious, Walker truly believes that God will heal her.
“I’m on so many prayer lists. I have prayer warriors praying for me.” She has also started listening to podcasts about cancer and learning all she can about boosting her immune system.
“I’m taking a lot of supplements because I have to be at top shape when they do the surgery,” she said. “The surgery will have a huge impact on my immune system, and if it is already down, it could prompt more cancer cells to spread.”
Walker is also drinking alkaline water, using essential oils, and working out with a rebounder to stimulate you lymphatic symptom.
“I thank God for giving this to me because it really opened me up,” she said. “And even after surgery, I know I’m going to be okay because I know what to do to prevent it from coming back. I’ve learned my lesson.”
Although she is doing whatever she can to strengthen her body before surgery, she has realized that she can’t rely completely on herself.
“I’ve always been independent, and I’ve always wanted to do things myself,” Walker said. “This is the first time that God has taught me that I’m not an island. I don’t got this. He’s got this. And I believe that with God’s grace and power, I will be healed.”