30 Rural Living The survivors STRONG SUPPORT HELPS BEAT BACK CANCER Lois Harris A CANCER DIAGNOSIS CAN BE A DEVASTATING SETBACK FOR YOUNG, BUSY FARMERS, but with personal grit and support from family, friends, and empathetic members of the agricultural community, they can not only survive but thrive. THE JOURNEY STARTS “I had my first positive diagnosis in September 2022,” says Sara Wood. It was the nurse, during a routine exam, who first found a suspicious lump in her breast. She then had a series of mammograms, blood tests, and several biopsies before the confirmation. “Everyone said, oh, it has to be a false positive because you’re so young,” says Wood, who was 33 at the time. She is a fourth-generation Mitchell, Ontario farmer who, along with her husband Chris and mother Deb, raises broiler chickens and grows corn, wheat, soybeans, and cover crops. She’s also mom to Logan, who was four when she was diagnosed. She is now also the vice president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA). While her family doctor informed her of the diagnosis, it was late November before she could find out from the assigned surgeon any details about her disease, which ended up being stage three cancer that had entered her lymph nodes. More tests ensued, including a bone scan and a CT scan. She was frustrated by the silence she received when she asked about why all the tests were being ordered. The lack of information sharing in the health system was something that Kelsey Banks, who is in remission from brain cancer, also suffered. Part of the problem was the restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and part of it was the fact that she had to move from her home in western Ontario to her dad’s home in Kemptville to get to Ottawa for treatments. “They take your licence away when you’re having seizures, so that’s not great for living in a rural area,” she says. In 2019, while she was living in an apartment in Drayton, Banks began to experience night-time seizures. She was also tired and was getting frequent headaches, which, at the age of 26, she put down to not getting enough sleep. Banks share-crops corn, wheat, and soybeans on two properties in southwestern and eastern Ontario. She’s also an agronomist and buyer with Ceresco, a food-grade soybean company based in Quebec. In April, she took an early maternity leave and is expecting her first baby in late June. She suffered a very serious grand mal seizure at Christmas time in 2019; she was taken to the hospital, where she was misdiagnosed with pneumonia and referred to an ear, nose and throat specialist. That specialist ordered an MRI, and the way Banks got the results was a bit of a rural saga. She was at the annual Certified Crop Advisor review in Woodstock, where there wasn’t any cell service. After a circuitous route involving calls from the specialist to her dad to the hotel where she was staying, she finally got in touch with the specialist who had set her up with an oncologist. “My dad was almost home to Kemptville from attending Christmas events in western Ontario,” she says, and when she called to ask him to take her to St. Michael’s hospital in downtown Toronto the next day, he said CHRIS, LOGAN, AND SARA WOOD. PHOTOS SUPPLIED.
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