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Mother savors Thanksgiving after battle with brain cancer

‘I just think that I looked death in the face’

Debbie France is grateful to be celebrating her second Thanksgiving since being diagnosed with a brain tumor. A year ago, she was recovering from surgery and facing a grim prognosis. Doctors initially told her she had six months to a year to live. After undergoing a new drug regimen, MRIs have shown she has no tumors and she is back at her job as an ophthalmic technician at Stahl Vision Center.

Staff photo by Chris Stewart Debbie France is grateful to be celebrating her second Thanksgiving since being diagnosed with a brain tumor. A year ago, she was recovering from surgery and facing a grim prognosis. Doctors initially told her she had six months to a year to live. After undergoing a new drug regimen, MRIs have shown she has no tumors and she is back at her job as an ophthalmic technician at Stahl Vision Center.

ENLARGE PHOTO

By Kim Margolis, Staff Writer 8:57 PM Wednesday, November 25, 2009

When Debbie France received her brain tumor diagnosis, she didn’t react the way most patients do.

Her attitude and calm after being told she was terminal is one of the reasons she has defied that diagnosis, said her case manager Marilyn Reed, a registered nurse and brain tumor patient case manager at Kettering Medical Center.

“Typically, they cry,” Reed said. “But not Debbie.”

Instead, France, then 24 and raising her son, Elijah, then only a 1-year-old, simply prepared.

She didn’t prepare to die. She planned to keep herself and those around her calm.

“My idea was to stay happy and trust everything will be OK,” France said. “I could not face everyone looking at me with stress.”

First, she took Elijah to Young’s Jersey Dairy Farm and took a lot of pictures. Then, her co-workers and boss from Stahl Vision in Beavercreek took her to dinner.

She already was a member of Fellowship Christian Church in Springfield, but she made sure to get baptized.

And she took care of something lighthearted and normal: She got a manicure and pedicure. She knew she couldn’t do anything about her shaved head, but her feet and hands were going to look good.

Before surgery at Kettering Medical Center, she made a collage filled with photographs of herself, Bible verses and prayers. A focal point was a painting of Jesus guiding a surgeon. She knew her friends and family would worry about her, so she put the items in the waiting room to comfort them.

Surgery

Brain surgery is scary enough, but France would be awake for hers. The reason is that her handball-sized tumor was located near the motor strip, the part of the brain that affects movement. To make sure the surgery did not paralyze her, France was awake to answer questions and respond to commands.

Despite being awake, she barely remembers the four-hour procedure, just holding the hand of one doctor.

The next few days in the hospital, however, weren’t easy. She could often hear machines indicating other patients were in trouble and the voices of nurses and doctors shouting orders.

“People are dying left and right and I’m trying to hold onto my faith,” she said. “I prayed and prayed I’d get through it.”

The next hurdles

When she got home, there was difficulty. Because the motor strip was touched, some of her movements and brain activity were off. She would drop forks, be confused about what she wanted when going to the refrigerator, scared about how to use the phone. Her mother had to help her get out of the bathtub because she could not figure it out.

Another objective of her surgery was to remove the tumor and have it biopsied. Two weeks after the surgery, she found the tumor was the worst kind possible, a grade four. She was told she would live no more than six months to a year.

“I’m not going to believe it,” she recalled thinking.

Again, she was right, thanks to a new drug regimen, but not before she had a recurrence of two tumors in April.

Her neurosurgeon at Kettering, Dr. Asif Bashir had France’s surgery scheduled, but oncologist Dr. Alejandro Calvo wanted to try a combination pill and injection regimen of a new drug. The injectable chemotherapy drug, Avastin, cuts the blood supply to tumors.

The surgery was canceled and the drug administered. After just a few weeks, she had an MRI. The tumors were gone. An MRI on Oct. 28 also showed no tumors. France enjoys confounding her highly educated, highly skilled doctors.

“I’m just kinda crazy to them,” France said. “They don’t know what to say.”

The future

France and her story have been an inspiration to hospital staff and patients.

“One Debbie makes our day,” said Calvo, oncology service medical director.

Reed, the case manager, preaches hope to all her brain tumor patients. She talks to them about making plans and living, instead of hearing a prognosis and planning only for that deadline.

With France, Reed has a true-life example of her words.

“If you can see somebody who’s living and not waiting, it’s great,” Reed said.

Last spring, France walked in the Relay for Life. Her medication worked, but created crippling blisters to her feet, but she still walked.

“Everybody was looking at her like, ‘She has a brain tumor?’ ” Reed said.

And now she’s back at work at Stahl’s office, living up to that image. She’s answering phones, laughing with friends and sharing snacks in the break room.

The tumor eventually will come back, her doctors say, and it will kill her. Again, France finds a way to be grateful.

“That’s fine,” she said. “I just think that I looked death in the face and what can you do? You have two options. You freak out and turn to everything that would hurt you, or you deal with it and thank God, or somebody, for letting you live this long.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2216 or kmargolis@DaytoDailyNews.com.

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it was such a loverly story i have a frind in england who has a brain tumor and i so much wish something like this could happen to him he has already gone pass the two weeks he was given and i hope with all my heart he can live life a lot longer as he is still with all his fasites sorry aout spelling but iam so sad

ron baldry
12:51 PM, 12/4/2009

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was an inspiring story. i remember when it happened. was pretty sad. california

miller
5:23 PM, 12/2/2009

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I bjust want to say that his whole experience ws God's way of teaching us a valuable lesson. My sister was the rigt person for h job, Heknew she could handle it better than anyone else and sheis going to live to be 95 and raise her baby and her gradchildren. We allneed to grow in our faith and learn to be thankful forevery day God gives us with our families!! Thank you for all the prayers, God is good and my sister is my hero!!

andrea Costa
1:32 PM, 11/27/2009

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Kim, you've written a wonderful article about a woman with a great attitude toward life.I'm glad that Debbie's medical team had a solution which worked well & certainly pray that she has no recurrence.I could almost see in my mind the picture she had of Jesus guiding the hand of the surgeons, which is a belief I have & I include in my prayers for those undergoing surgery. I'm glad she had it in the waiting room for her loved ones to see, maybe it will help somebody else get through tough times!

Thankful
12:17 PM, 11/27/2009

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Kim (Writer):

Stick to the true story not somebodies opinion. Using your words keeping up with the true story would be to reflect on what she has been thru and where she has come. The last paragraph is not part of the true story it is ones opinion that could possibly be wrong which has obviously already been shown in her miraculous fight to live. Still a great piece just my opinion not to close with such a negative it could have been conveyed in a different way should you feel the need.

Thinkaboutit
1:21 AM, 11/27/2009

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