A new purpose: Cancer and stroke survivor finds a calling in spreading hope

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GREENFIELD — At her lowest, Mary Beth Sifferlen prayed to die.

Homebound and partially paralyzed by a series of strokes after surgeries to remove two brain tumors, Sifferlen felt she’d lost who she was: an outgoing, talkative wife, mother and nurse. If she couldn’t be any of those things, who was she, other than a burden on her husband and two sons? she thought in dark moments.

On Thursday, Sifferlen, 52, graduated from physical therapy treatments at Hancock Regional Hospital, where she has worked years with therapists and specialists to regain her mobility, she said. It has been a nearly 20-year journey since her first brain tumor diagnosis and subsequent surgery, and through it all, Sifferlen has found faith in the guiding hand of a higher power and blessings in her family, both blood and found, as she recovers and lives her best life. Sifferlen recently began speaking about her experiences, both with groups and with individuals healing after surviving strokes, she said.

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Finding a new purpose, when her physical disabilities no longer allowed her to be a labor and delivery nurse, was one of the toughest parts of her recovery, even more than the hours and hours of working out and physical therapy that keep her at her current state of mobility, she said.

“I was so sad,” she recalled. “I can’t work; I lost that. I lost being a mama, I couldn’t be in the kitchen, I wasn’t able to do anything. I lost my social network. I was always doing something; I was always on the go.”

Sifferlen was diagnosed with a grade-2 brain tumor in 2001. At that time, she was a nurse in the maternity department at IU Health, a job she loved, and she was the mother of 2- and 5-year-old sons.

It took four different consultations with neurosurgeons before she could find someone willing to remove the tumor, she said.

“I’m a nurse,” she said. “It weighed on me. I wanted it out.”

In July, she had the surgery, which went off without any complications and didn’t require any further treatment like chemotherapy or radiation, she said. But 10 years later, she had a seizure, and an MRI showed another tumor had grown back in the exact same spot, like a malicious fruit dangling — and growing — from leftover cancer cells.

This recovery would be far more complicated.

The tumor was a grade-3 oligodendroglioma, a kind of brain tumor that would require extensive chemotherapy and radiation after surgery. Even with that, doctors told Sifferlen she would never be considered in remission, that the tumor would return.

“I am supposed to be dead,” Sifferlen says now, looking back at that grim prognosis. “Everyone said I had five years at most. The memories I’ve made with people during the years since I was supposed to be gone are so precious to me, and I hope they’re precious to the people I made them with as well.”

After the surgery, she returned to work at IU Health North Hospital, but the chemotherapy and radiation had such severe effects she had to stop working. One day, she started walking into walls and couldn’t see anything to the left. That remains to this day.

The combination of treatments gave her extreme brain fog, and she was in a dreamlike state, she said.

“After 6 of the 10 treatments, I said I wouldn’t do it anymore,” she said.

The tumors and scar tissue had entered into the area of her brain that controlled motor function for the left side of her body, leaving her left side paralyzed. She had to take drugs for pain and twitching muscles on that side every four hours.

Small seizures after that second surgery meant Sifferlen had to relearn how to walk a dozen times, she said.

In the years after her second surgery, Sifferlen spent more than two years in a lift chair in a semi-conscious state. She doesn’t remember a lot of it; her husband and sons have shared what happened during those times. What she does remember is the kindness of friends and family who spent time with her.

Her own father stayed with her and her sons for weeks while her husband traveled for work. Girlfriends from the maternity ward would take a week off at a time and stay at her side, chatting, reading, anything to keep her mind occupied.

Sifferlen said despite the struggle, she wouldn’t change anything, a statement that’s drawn incredulity from audiences before.

Her sons saw what it really means to be in a loving, committed relationship, where a partner stays steadfast through the challenges, she said. And it brought her a faith, a spiritual understanding that she wouldn’t give up, as well as a deep gratitude for what a community can do when it comes together.

It’s been a slow climb to where she is today, she said. Some days, all she could do was get dressed. Having to work around the left side of her body, which didn’t want to move, had her dripping in sweat. Some days, she showered and got dressed, and that was it for the day.

There’s no one moment Sifferlen can point to and say “this is when things started to get better,” but physical therapy and working out at the Hancock Wellness Center kept her accountable, and she started to build relationships with people there.

Using the Hancock Area Rural Transit system gave her back her independence, she said. She uses the service most weekdays to get to the wellness center and home, and she considers herself completely independent, she said.

She knows all the drivers and dispatchers by their voices, and when she sees them, she hands out hugs and asks after them enthusiastically.

Her husband still has to travel for work, so he can be gone five days at a time, during which Sifferlen cares for herself, cooks and cares for her German Shepherd, Lilly.

Sifferlen had her first speaking engagement at the hospital late last year, where Kit Paternoster, volunteer coordinator for Hancock County Senior Services, learned her story and decided she needed to share it with other groups.

“She told the crowd she’s not a public speaker, she just wants to help,” Paternoster recalled. “I had to disagree. She’s a good speaker, and she’s only going to get better. She’s bright and effervescent, a wonderful person.”

Though Sifferlen had to mourn the lost time with her sons, and the loss of her career as a nurse, she finds fulfillment in connecting with people going through similar recovery situations, she said.

Sifferlen chooses every day to be joyful, she said. She finds joy in small things — a ray of sunshine on her face, a bird outside the window.

“I have had to make the choice hour by hour to be joyful,” she said. “I find one thing to be grateful about and have faith that things will work out.”