Storyline Fall 2018

OVERCOMER!
Brenda Brydon’s Story
As told by Jeremy Dyck
Even before I was diagnosed with stage four liver and colon
cancer, I would have told you I was an overcomer.
I still say that today, after going through one of the most testing
experiences in my life. But it wasn’t the experience of surviving
cancer that gave me that belief. It was my faith that through God,
I am an overcomer. It’s through His strength that I’ve been able to
survive and persist through these last two years.
I remember the date quite clearly – July 4, 2016 – when doctors
first informed me of my diagnosis. I was 45 years old at the time,
and I was told I was one of the youngest people to have such
a progressive form of the cancer in my liver and colon. It didn’t
seem like a consolation to me at the time.
It was August 3, 2016 that I had my first operation. It was five and
a half hours of back-to-back surgeries to cut out the portion of
my colon that was infected. That surgery didn’t hold. I was back 5
days later when the doctors determined that my two colon pieces
hadn’t reattached well. I was in the hospital for over a month,
under the careful scrutiny of some of the best doctors in the city.
I was transported to other facilities where I contracted a
super bug, a rapid infection that threatened to overwhelm my
struggling, frail body. I remember not eating any solid food
for the entire month. The medical staff had me strapped to an
IV tube, just one of the several tubes that were sustaining me
through that time. I had feeding tubes, drainage tubes, tubes fed
into my liver.
“I am an overcomer,” I continued to remember
through those difficult times.
But I persisted.
I am an
OVERCOMER.
After the tubes were removed, I started what
would end up being a total of twelve rounds
of chemotherapy to try and eradicate the
remainder of the cancerous cells in my
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