Honored to be a survivor
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Lindsay Sandham
Balboa Island residents know Sheri Drewry as the jovial personality
who lights up Wilma’s Patio, the charming family restaurant named for
her mother that’s been serving locals and tourists for 23 years.
The Newport Beach Restaurant Assn. knows Drewry as its vice
president, and now as this year’s honorary cancer survivor for the
association’s team in the upcoming Relay for Life, which will begin
at 6 p.m. Friday and last until 6 p.m. Saturday.
The 43-year-old Costa Mesa resident was diagnosed with breast
cancer in January 2004, after going in for her annual doctor’s
appointment and mammogram. She said she had a baseline mammogram when
she was much younger, which is how the doctor was able to find the
cancer in such an early stage. Had it not been for that baseline
exam, the technician who performed the mammogram would never have
found the tumor, Drewry said.
After multiple biopsies and a magnetic resonance imaging exam,
doctors found a second tumor.
“Then I started getting really scared,” she said.
Her oncologist, Neil Barth, told her about genomic testing,
approved by the Food and Drug Administration the same day she was
diagnosed -- that would allow doctors to find out everything about
her cancer, giving doctors the best options for treatment.
What they found was that, although her cancer was in stage 1, it
was a very aggressive form that has the ability to spread fairly
quickly. So they prescribed her eight rounds of high-dose
chemotherapy, on top of a procedure to remove the tumors.
Even with all the surgeries and treatments, Drewry never missed a
step. She never stopped looking after her home and her family, and
she missed just a few days of work. In fact, right after her second
round of chemotherapy, she went to check on her mother, Wilma
Staudinger of Newport Beach, who had had a stroke months earlier,
only to find that she had suffered a second stroke. She immediately
took her to the hospital, and then took full responsibility of the
family restaurant.
“When you are taking care of other people, you go into that mode,”
she said. “There were times when I was so exhausted, but I just kept
pushing through. In hindsight, I think that was the best thing for
me.”
She added that due to the welcoming family environment of Wilma’s
Patio -- between the staff and the customers -- she was fortunate to
have a lot of people going through it with her, including her
husband, David, and her daughter, Leslie, who is now 13.
“That is really helpful -- the constant deluge of calls and
flowers and gifts,” she said. “Positive energy is really huge.”
Drewry had her first clean six-month checkup April 12.
Even though she was not able to attend meetings for the Newport
Beach Restaurant Assn. for nearly a year, they welcomed her back with
open arms and elected her vice president.
Drewry said it’s an honor to participate in the relay, especially
as the association’s honorary survivor.
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