A Zest for Life

After Stacie Dennard’s cancer diagnosis, she and her husband, Brandon, focus on spending time with their family

by JILEEN PLATT

Photo by ALAMOND PHOTOGRAPHY

Glittering gems and gleaming gold are beautiful to the eye and convey thoughts of wealth, luxury and magnificence.  Research has proven that these beautiful items go through a complex process that starts with simple organic materials and ends with rubies, diamonds, gold and silver.  This process does not happen spontaneously but must include time, heat and pressure. There is a painful process to their beauty.

The Dennards were so thankful that their friend and photographer, Heidi Carter, offered to take their family photos right before Stacie began chemotherapy in 2017. (Photo by Heidi Carter)

The purity of gold comes from intense heat and flame. The brilliance of diamonds comes from heat and pressure over a long period of time.  It is the process that is transformative.  

Meet Stacie Dennard, a native East Texan with an easy smile, quick laugh and kind demeanor.  If you sit down and talk with her for a bit, you will quickly find that she adores her two boys and her husband, and they are all dependent on their relationship with Christ.  Further into your conversation, you will discover that she is passionate about books, English literature and writing skills (She is a former high school English teacher.), is deathly afraid of snakes, and being in the sunshine makes her very happy.  She may or may not mention that she is currently in a battle with cancer.  Stacie has a rare form of adenosarcoma. This cancer is highly aggressive, can metastasize and has a high mortality rate.  Adenosarcoma is so rare that there is limited data to guide treatment decisions.  The most successful method is basic: surgery and removal of tumors.

Stacie and the boys enjoy a hike at Devil’s Den State Park in Arkansas.

If you saw Stacie today you would think to yourself, “How is this seemingly healthy and happy woman fighting cancer right now?” She has a zest for life and moves with fervor and focus.  She walks almost four miles, three days a week and keeps up with her very active boys, often joining in on a pick-up game of basketball, walking to the nearby fishing pond or attending their church and school activities.  To some, this woman would seem a vision of health.  

Dakota, Denver and Brandon gather around Stacie wright before her last surgery on her lungs at MD Anderson.

What you don’t see, though, are the scars left from the last seven years of removed tumors, including a full hysterectomy, the lower half of her left lung, portions of her right lung, a portion of her left kidney, and six inches from her small intestine.  This doesn’t include the emotional scars from 33 rounds of radiation in 2012, and the memories of high fevers, hair and nail loss, skin and mouth ulcers, neuropathy of the hands, and losing her ability to walk during six cycles of chemotherapy in 2017.   Incidentally, this Christmas of 2019 is the first Christmas season in the last four years that she is not prepping for surgery or recovering from a recent one.

Stacie will continue to have CT scans every three months to ensure that the doctors are aware of any new growths.  Currently she is “without any growing tumors,” which she and her family consider no small miracle.  So how does a person react to so much trauma over such a short amount of time? What is the plan for the future?  And how does a person reconcile her life in joy even when, or especially when, life gets hard? 

“Life is too short,” explains Stacie. “When you are at the point of really having to face death … everything becomes sweeter.  You hug tighter, and you want to become more present in the moment.  It’s really a gift to live that way.  My days are too short to spend any of them wasted by bitterness, ongoing depression or sadness.  I’m not saying I haven’t been sad or haven’t had bad days.  But I refuse to wallow.  It’s a waste of my precious time.”

Stacie has a tradition of writing Scriptures on her arms before every surgery. It is her prayer that not only does Jesus walk into the room before her, but that He, the Great Physician, gives wisdom and discernment to the doctors and nurses and lets them know that they are not alone.

During Stacie’s chemotherapy in 2017, she kept a blog on Caringbridge.com.  Through this medium, Stacie conveyed her ups and downs, and her working relationship and reliance on God.  Stacie’s realness, genuine optimism and sense of humor shine through in her posts, including one after several chemotherapy treatments that reads,  “I got a little cocky.  If you asked me last week how chemo was going, I would have said, ‘It’s alright.  You know, I’m tired and nauseous, but it’s alright’… Someone who has actually experienced chemo should have shaken her head at me, patted my shoulder, and said, ‘Oh my young grasshopper.  How naïve you are, Little One.’  Because then Monday hit.  And now I know.  Or now, I’m just scared that I think I know, and I have no clue what is coming.  I’m not going to go into all the details because let’s be honest, no one likes a cry baby, but let’s just say: chemo kicked my butt, wrote my actual name down (not my medical number), and I’m not so cocky anymore.  Last week I felt guilty asking for prayers … this week: no guilt.  I’ll take any prayer, any whispered thought, any fleeting mention to the Most High God.”

Right before surgery at MD Anderson in November 2018, Stacie poses for a photo with her brother, Brad Buchanan; mother, Patti Buchanan; father, James Buchanan; husband, Brandon; and sons, Dakota and Denver.

In a later post she wrote, “…I’d like to tell you that my shaved head looks just like Natalie Portman in ‘V for Vendetta,’ but it really looks like I have the mange.  It is true that during these dark days I feel like I’m tossed into a dark, stormy sea with waves looming ahead, crashing down, tumbling me over, pulling me down, tossing me back up.  I’m not even swimming because this storm is completely out of my control ...  I’m just lying on my back, experiencing the storm, with my eyes on the Light.  Because I know without a doubt that there is a reason for this storm.  I know that the saltwater and constant waves are refining me, purifying me, molding me.”

Another post responds to the question of being mad at God.  Her answer: “God didn’t give me cancer.  We live in a beautiful but broken, flawed, temporary world, and I live in a flawed, temporary body.  This isn’t my home. But God does promise that He will make good come from bad times, hard times, desperate times ... I’ve learned so much about God from this journey: His goodness, His mercy, His promises, His Word, His power…I see the blessings from this sickness.  Through the pain, I’ve changed, my boys have changed, my family has changed.  And it is a sweet, soul-inspiring, soak-up-life change.”

Brandon, her husband, remembers one of the many times they were driving back from MD Anderson in Houston.  They had just received news that cancer had spread to her other lung, and Stacie was looking out the car window.  In a teary whispered voice, Stacie said, “You know, it is scary, but it’s a beautiful way to live.  Time becomes so precious.”  

Certainly, cancer is not beautiful … and hearing bad news that will affect your family forever is not beautiful.  Stacie and Brandon will tell you they don’t have it all figured out, but they are heavily focused on what’s good, and they choose it over and over again.  That optimism IS beautiful!  “Our perspective has changed,” says Brandon.  “Our goal is to appreciate time with our family.  We make purposeful moments and memories.  How precious time and life truly are.”

Precious time is what the Dennard family is focusing on this Christmas season, and every other day in the future.  “My wise brother told me recently what we have taught him,” explains Stacie.  “We live with joy and contentment no matter the circumstances.  To live intentionally in the moment whether [those moments] be mundane or celebratory.”  

In all honesty, the Dennard family does not know what the future holds for them.  They pray for continued clear scans, more time, and doing more of what God wants them to do.   This ongoing event in their life has certainly been transformative to them.  Just as gold and diamonds become something greater after time and refinement, the Dennard family pushes on, stronger, closer to each other, more hopeful, and trusting in God for whatever comes.