There are two simple truths about motherhood. There is nothing stronger than a mother’s love and nothing she won’t do for her children. This Mother’s Day, we celebrate one woman’s fight to stay alive and all she endured along the way.
There are two simple truths about motherhood. There is nothing stronger than a mother’s love and nothing she won’t do for her children. This Mother’s Day, we celebrate one woman’s fight to stay alive and all she endured along the way.
Death Is Not An Option
Adriana Garcia was just 34 years old with three small children when she first felt a lump in her neck. She went to a doctor who put her on antibiotics, but the mass only got bigger. With no insurance and seemingly no other available options, Adriana traveled to Mexico to see her mother’s physician there. She was eventually diagnosed with stage two Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
“I thought it was a death sentence,” she remembers. “I was scared for myself, scared for my loved ones. My children were only three, five and seven at the time. I worried I would not be alive to raise them, to watch them grow up. That devastated me.”
Whatever It Takes
Adriana decided then that she was going to do whatever she needed to do in order to survive. If that meant traveling back and forth from Mexico to get treatments – then that was what she was going to do. “I have a picture when we took the kids out to eat and my husband told the kids that mommy is sick, and we need to do everything we can to make her better. He told them we were sending me to Mexico to make mommy better.”
Roberto Garcia is Adriana’s husband. He witnessed her determination firsthand and was in awe of her strength and sheer will to live. “I watched her board the bus every other week,” he recalls. “It was a 24-hour drive and she would leave on Saturday, arrive in Mexico on Sunday, get treatment on Monday, get back on the bus Tuesday and finally arrive home on Wednesday.”
A Chance Meeting
Adriana admits it was grueling and exhausting but felt she had no other choice – until she was introduced to Johnny McMinn, M.D., a medical oncologist at the INTEGRIS Health Cancer Institute. “It was a chance meeting,” she declares. “A relative of mine was being treated at the cancer institute and mentioned my situation to the translator at the facility. The next thing I knew, we had an appointment with Dr. McMinn.”
“Adriana was very ill when I first saw her,” recounts Dr. McMinn. “Her initial treatment regimen was not working. A biopsy determined her cancer had actually progressed to stage four. We initiated a progressive treatment of both chemotherapy and radiation.”
Since then, there have been highs and lows as the Garcias have navigated through both restoration and relapse. But in 2023, Adriana finally heard the words she had been longing to hear – she was cancer free. “I was 39 years old then and remember feeling joyful and powerful,” she declares. “But most importantly, I was still here for my husband and my kids.”
Today her children are 9, 11 and 13, and Adriana doesn’t take a single day for granted. She says every day is a blessing and every Mother’s Day is a gift.
The INTEGRIS Health Oncology Survivorship and Genetics Clinic offers ongoing support for cancer survivors, addressing lingering side effects, performing imaging and lab work and providing clinical care.
