Caroline Saxon is a 70-year-old woman who has been married for over 50 years to Robert Saxon, and together they have four children and nine grandchildren. They have lived on a farm in the RM of Benson since 1979.
Saxon was always in good health and did not have to take medication for anything. In 2004, she began to run marathons.
“I was not a runner, only in my mind,” said Saxon. She wanted to run one marathon by the time she was 50 years old.
Suddenly she realized she was 49 years old, and if she wanted to fulfil this desire to do a marathon, Saxon needed to get on it. She had a year to put a program together, and even though she knew she could not run a kilometre, she wanted to keep her promise to start training.
Saxon signed up for the Fire and Ice Marathon in Reykjavik, Iceland, and the rest is history. She went to the Running Room in Regina to get some training shoes and equipment, and a book on how to complete a full marathon. She was on her way.
The following year, she ran in Rome and in 2006 completed a full marathon of 42.2 kilometres in Dublin. The whole time she felt great and carried on with life.
Suddenly, one evening while at home, Saxon had excruciating pain in her abdomen and was taken to emergency.
The following morning her doctor said everything was fine and her vitals were perfectly normal.
“I told him, something was not perfectly okay,” she said. The doctor prescribed Saxon some medication, which her inner self said not to take.
Saxon went home, and the following night at 2 a.m., she woke up to even worse pain. Her husband took her to Regina, where a CT scan found lesions in her colon.
Now that she thinks about it, the signs were there. When the couple went to Mexico for a vacation, she was tired and did not have the get up and go to walk the beach. Saxon tried to read in bed but fell asleep. The heat bothered her and she hardly did any walking.
In April she was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent surgery. Another CT scan was performed, and three tumors that showed up on her liver were inoperable.
Six days after her first surgery to remove the cancerous lesions and polyps, her incision burst open and her bodily fluids from her colon spewed out. Within one hour she was in emergency surgery to repair the damage.
She became extremely ill, was hooked up to six machines and spent two months in the hospital. Yet another CT scan was done, and they found a large abscess on her right side that was making her extremely sick, so they inserted a tube to drain it.
“I was so nauseous from anti-nausea drugs I was receiving,” said Saxon. “I could not eat so unfortunately, I lost 40 pounds, and another 10 pounds at home."
In the hospital she received nourishment through a peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) line in her upper arm.
Her ordeal seemed to be ongoing.
“If it was not for my husband, children, my sister and friends, I am sure I never would have survived,” she said.
While she was in the hospital, her husband Robert and oldest daughter Melissa stayed with her. Her other daughter Robin and daughter-in-law Vivi flew to Mexico to pick up herbs and vitamins to sustain her. Robin also read and deciphered all her scans and weekly blood reports so they could stay on top of everything.
The incision needed to be dry packed, with the wound dressing changed every day until the incision closed up, which took four months.
Devin, their oldest son, was unable to come home as he was working at a uranium mine 640 metres underground at McArthur Lake in northern Saskatchewan.
Another son Ryan had a friend in New York with connections to the New York Cancer Hospital and they were so supportive.
She had some decisions to make. If she had chemotherapy and the tumours shrunk, a liver surgeon in Saskatoon could remove them if there was one or become a recipient for a liver transplant.
Saxon chose neither; instead she opted for immunotherapy, diet, exercise and meditation therapies.
Today, Saxon is feeling much better and receiving immunotherapy treatments regularly and she feels that it is due to these treatments that the tumors are shrinking. Her last bloodwork showed that the tumor is half the size, and she has no side effects from the treatments.
Although she feels tired, she is feeling rather good and is off to Vancouver shortly. She is a dedicated Saskatchewan Roughriders fan and always goes to the Grey Cup.
On Oct. 10, Saxon went for another immunotherapy treatment and the nurse could not believe her bloodwork results.
“My liver panel is nearing normal, and I am so happy all my hard work and determination is paying off,” said Saxon.
“I always thought I would stay private about my cancer, but after reading up about other people’s experiences, I now realize how important it is to help each other, only if they want to be helped,” Saxon said.
