Windsor mom defies cancer death sentence to make the most of life
Tabitha Wegner has spent the last year soaking up every second of a life that was already supposed to be over.
In 2016, doctors told the mother of two her body was so riddled with inoperable cancer, she would likely be dead within months.
This month, they told her the cancer has disappeared from her CT scans.
So whether by miracle, medical intervention or the sheer will to live, the 29-year-old cancer fighter is still here — long after doctors said she’d be gone.
Wegner has been using the precious time wisely. She’s gone whale watching, put her feet in the Atlantic Ocean, and just for good measure, visited a religious shrine known for healing the sick.
She’s now looking forward to watching her 11-year-old daughter finish elementary school and celebrating a milestone birthday on July 31.
“I’m actually going to see my 30th birthday, which is awesome,” said Wegner. “Most people dread it, but I’m excited for it. I have no plans, I just know that I want to do something big, because it’s pretty awesome that I get to see this birthday.”
Wegner received devastating news around Christmas 2016 that the cancer she thought she had beaten was back. It was in her diaphragm, her sternum, her aorta and her clavicle. The cancer had also invaded her lymph nodes behind her collarbone and the outside of her cervix.
Her prognosis, confirmed at the time by Windsor Regional Hospital, wasn’t good. She had three months. Her best-case scenario, with aggressive chemotherapy, was maybe a year.
After facing the fact she would soon die, Wegner set out to make sure her children, Nevaeh Diamond, 11, and Gage Diamond, 10, would be provided for. She started a GoFundMe campaign to pay for her own funeral. Whatever was left would be used for her children’s education.
After a Windsor Star report about Wegner’s fundraising efforts, the outpouring of support was huge. The campaign has raised nearly $20,000, which will be put into a trust account for the children. Families First Funeral Home also offered to pay for funeral expenses.
“She’s such a young lady with a young family needing support,” said Sherri Tovell, the funeral home’s vice-president of family services. “To have her worrying about her kids’ education on top of having to pay for a funeral — if we can take that one worry from her, then she can focus on other things. She mentioned wanting to take them on vacation. She needs to create memories with them and for them. That’s what is important, not worrying about paying for a funeral.”
But Wegnerw on’ t need their servicesassoon as she thought. Her doctors recently told her that her last CT scan showed a “lack of disease.”
“When you look at her imaging about a year and some change ago, you’d see an actual tumour. It would have dimensions on it. They’d talk about the bulkiness here and the lymph nodes there,” said Dr. Lawrence Aoun, Wegner’s palliative care physician. “None of that is really present at this point in time. So she’s had an impressive response to radiation and chemotherapy.”
The response, he said, was also unusual and unexpected. If the average response of most patients to cancer trials and treatment could be measured on a bell curve, said Aoun, Wegner would be on the “extreme right” of the curve.
“The further right you go, the fewer people there are,” he said. “But occasionally you see these cases and you think, ‘Holy geez, how did we get here?’ Their response has been exquisite compared to the median or the average.”
But despite the recent good news, doctors are making the “presumption” cancer is still there.
“To say no cancer, I think that’s unwise,” said Aoun. “To say there is a lack of radiographic evidence, that’s fair, because there is lack of any CT suggestion of leftover cancer. But microscopic disease, things like that, won’t be picked up on CT scans.”
Wegner still isn’t sure what it all means, but she knows she’s not home free. She said surgery might now be an option on any cancer that’s there.
“It was pretty awesome, but at the same time, it was like, where did it go?” she said. “Right now, my confusion is what’s next? How does it change things? What I’m getting from it is that I’m going to get re-referred to London to maybe discuss the possibility of surgery.”
Wegner said doctors had already decided last summer to stop chemotherapy after some earlier positive results.
“It was there, but frozen, not going anywhere, so they said, let’s just stop chemo,” said Wegner, whose hair is slowly growing back. “It’s not going away, but it’s not getting worse, we’ll give you a break.”
Just to hedge her bets, Wegner and her family took a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre in Quebec. Legend has it the Catholic church along the St. Lawrence River has been the site of countless miracle cures.
The front pillars at the church, one of the most visited religious shrines in North America, are covered with crutches left behind by people who say they were healed at the hallowed site.
“Let me tell you, I was grasping at every straw when it came to survival,” said Wegner. “I was reaching out to every faith, every belief. I wasn’t ready to give up.”
The visit to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre was part of a “bucket list” trip to the east coast that Wegner’s uncle, David Cunningham, took the family on.
Cunningham had been planning the trip to follow his July 1 retirement from Ford Motor Company in Toronto. He had “some extra money,” so after the tough year the family had, he decided to take everyone with him. Seven people went, including Tabitha, her children and her mother.
“They loved it,” said Cunningham, 61. “It was just like a big adventure. It kind of brought us all closer together, so it was nice that way.”
Wegner had finally regained some energy. For the first time in a long while, she felt like herself. Cunningham said they seized the opportunity in case it didn’t last.
“You never know how long you have,” he said
They went to New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.
“I got to put my feet in the ocean. I went to go watch whales,” said Wegner. “I got to accomplish quite a bit of my bucket list this year.”
She’s also been helping her children cross a few items off their wish lists. When Families First offered to help her, they told Wegner to use the money she would have spent on her funeral to take her kids on vacation.
“So I ended up taking them to Niagara Falls because my daughter absolutely loves waterfalls and my son just loves adventures,” she said. “We went and did the Maid of the Mist, we spent a week doing everything under the sun for my kids and making memories.”
Wegner has also been letting her daughter do some of the “wild teenage things” she’s worried she won’t get to see. Nevaeh dyed her hair into a rainbow and got her nose pierced.
“We went a little crazy,” said Wegner. “Then she was like, ‘Mom, can I get a tattoo?’ That’s where I draw the line.”
As she waits to see what the next move in her cancer fight will be, Wegner is looking forward to another big milestone the extra time has allowed for.
“This means I’m actually going to get to see my daughter graduate grade school, because her school only goes to Grade 6,” she said. “It’s pretty awesome.”