AREA WOMAN WHO SURVIVES CANCER TO DELIVER MESSAGE

Last week Sherry Sheffer watched her son graduate from high school and worried as her daughter took her first trips on a brand-new driver's license.

She never thought she would live to see either event: Twelve years ago Sheffer was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

"Having cancer is like having a war inside your body," Sheffer said. "Every day you have to get up and fight, and I won. I conquered cancer. Thanks to the doctors and the good Lord above, I've been given back my life."

Sheffer lives in Olmstead, Ill. Today she is in St. Louis to share her message of hope with other cancer patients at the fifth "Celebration of Life" hosted by Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University Medical Center.

She is one of 500 long-term cancer survivors who will attend.

"I have been asked to tell the human side of cancer, to pour out my feelings and emotions," she said. "I hope my story will give hope to others."

About 14 years ago Sheffer began feeling sick. She developed repeated sinus infections, then terrible back pain, then a low-grade fever that wouldn't go away. She visited six doctors over two years before a Cape Girardeau physician determined she had Hodgkin's lymphoma, cancer of the lymphatic system.

"I was diagnosed in stage 4B cancer," Sheffer said. "The cancer had gone throughout the lymphatic system and made a deposit in my lung."

She began chemotherapy immediately at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau. But a few months later she suffered a relapse.

"It was clear I wasn't going to get the cure," Sheffer said. "I had been diagnosed in such a late stage, and the cancer was so aggressive and had a strong hold on my body. The doctors informed me I was terminal."

Her physician, Dr. Brock Whittenberger, held out one possibility for hope: She was a good candidate for bone-marrow transplant.

The transplants aren't done at Southeast Missouri Hospital where she had been receiving care. She was sent to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. Doctors there gave her just a 30 to 40 percent chance of walking out alive. But the odds were good enough for Sheffer.

"I'm a real vivacious person," she said. "I said, `Let's go for it, let's go for it now.' I didn't want to wait. I wanted to live."

Sheffer said her husband, Donnie, has been very supportive through the illness. She also credits her strong religious faith with her recovery.

Entering the hospital was one of the hardest things she had to do. She left behind her two small children, Trent and Adrienne. While in the hospital she missed her son's seventh birthday and her daughter's fifth birthday.

She had her bone-marrow transplant on Christmas Eve 1986, then received massive doses of chemotherapy and total-body radiation along with high-powered antibiotics. She was in the St. Louis hospital seven weeks. After the transplant, Sheffer received daily follow-up treatment at Southeast Hospital.

For several years she received treatments to boost her immune system.

Sheffer's cancer has been in remission for 11 1/2 years. She has annual checkups to monitor her remission.

"I tell people that my 30s were tough. I was sick just about all of my 30s. But my 40s are going to be my best years."

She celebrated her 45th birthday Thursday.

Instead of worrying about life and death, Sheffer worries about finding a new job. She was recently laid off as a secretary. She worries about what to fix for dinner and how to help her daughter learn to be a better driver.

"When they first told me my diagnosis, I was devastated. I thought I'm going to die and not raise my children."

"My little boy was 6 years old in the first grade when I had the bone-marrow transplant. And I just watched him graduate from high school. My daughter will graduate in 2000, and I know I will see that too."