Sharon McIntyre has always enjoyed anything to do with the arts, and it was her love of music, theater, writing and gardening that helped her through her diagnosis of Stage 3 lung cancer in 2005.

Sharon hadn’t been feeling well and decided to go in to her doctor for a general stress test. She struggled with the test because she couldn’t breathe and her doctor sent to her to a respiratory specialist.

The specialist discovered a mass, which required a biopsy. While she was in the hospital recovering from the surgery the doctors told her she had stage 3 lung cancer that had begun to spread to the surrounding lymph nodes.

“I was stunned,” Sharon said. “My husband was very matter-of-fact, and started asking a lot of questions. My son broke down. I raised him as a single mother, so he and I are very close, and I know the situation was very hard on him.”

After her diagnosis, the doctors told Sharon that they wanted to do surgery to take her lung out, but Sharon wasn’t sure if that was the best option. “They threw a lot of information at me in a very short time,” she says. “I needed a minute to sit and breathe.”

Sharon began looking for other options, and learned about CyberKnife surgery, a surgery where the patient is put in a body cast, doctors insert fiducials, and radiation tracks and kills the cancer cells exactly.

“I talked to a friend who said that I should go for it. The hospital said I was a candidate, and, after testing, I was approved for the surgery,” she says.

The surgery didn’t go as smoothly as the doctors hoped because they discovered the cancer was beginning to spread. Afterwards Sharon began chemotherapy. She credits the kindness of the staff for making her appointments more bearable.

“Dr. Feiner would be wearing a different tie every week, which would always make me smile,” she says. “It was the little things like that, that I looked forward to and made the treatments a little easier.”

Sharon did well with the treatment and only suffered minor side effects. She and her husband didn’t miss a single play during the time of chemo treatments, which Sharon said was very important for her to keep her spirits up.

She also says that having cancer gave her a new appreciation for life, and that she feels it’s important for people to have things they are passionate about.

“I learned what is important and what isn’t in my life. I spent a lot of time at the zoo, museums and in gardens while I was in treatment. Everything I love and see and smell is more enhanced because I appreciate it. It was those things that helped me through.”

With the Stage 3 diagnosis, doctors gave Sharon a 15% chance of survival, but that didn’t stop her from fighting and six years from her initial diagnosis, Sharon is now cancer free. She gets checked once a year, hasn’t had a single relapse, and is excitedly awaiting the birth of her first grandchild this fall.

The Rose “Surviving Well” Calendar is a 15-month calendar highlighting our cancer services, physicians, and some inspirational stories from our patients. Sharon is our survivor for November 2010, which is also Lung Cancer Awareness Month. Click here to sign up to receive your FREE copy of the calendar.