Hamilton woman shares cancer survival story
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A Hamilton woman is generating a lot of buzz for her online video that details her fight with cancer.
Sarah DiBartolomeo is now cancer-free, and hopes that by sharing her experience, she will help those who are currently fighting the disease.
“As you can see, after one brush its pretty full this is everything that’s fallen out today.”
It’s a moment many never see. When a cancer patient first starts to lose her hair. For Sarah, it is the beginning of a short film documenting her battle with cancer.
“It was like every, every brush full, there was a huge clump in my hairbrush, and I sat there again it was that moment when the diagnosed me where I cannot believe this is happening to me”
She had been diagnosed with stage 2 lymphoma on February 28th, a day after her 29th birthday. Sarah began researching her illness and while there is plenty of helpful information, she noticed that there are very few first hand accounts of this kind of fight. So her mind quickly switched from student to teacher.
“I mean who knows what my fight’s gonna to look like. Who knows how my battle is gonna end up? But if I can show somebody what my body went through from the beginning to end stages, maybe that will help people prepare.”
She borrowed a camera from a friend and along with help from her husband, started to film key moments.
“This pain is astronomical…”
It shows the darkest moments while in chemotherapy.
“…like I am just praying that when I wake up this pain will be gone because I just didn’t know it could ever be this bad.”
And the support Sarah had from her husband while battling:
“I love you so much.”
To Sarah, that made all the difference. “When you literally have the world telling you stay strong, stay positive, how do you, how do you not?”
On October 16th, nine months after her diagnosis, she was declared cancer-free. The video now has more than 5,000 hits on YouTube.
And recently Sarah was featured as part of Toyota’s gift mission over the holidays where they gave her a new camera and a laptop to create more inspirational material.
“Oh my God, this is amazing.”
Now that she has cancer beat, Sarah has decided to take photography classes and hopes to do a photo shoot for other women who are battling the disease: a chronicle to give others hope.
