Woman turns author after struggle against brain cancer
By SHAWN FLOYD ,
Staff writer
08/31/2002
Sheila Higgs
There
was nothing to suggest Sheila Higgs had brain cancer, except maybe a
queasy stomach. "I had no signs, no symptoms, no nothing," she says.
"And then one day I left work, picked up my son and daughter and
went home."
At home in
the laundry room, she had a seizure.
"The last thing I
remember is seeing my kids walk by."
Her head hit the dryer;
her son, Michael, called 9-1-1 and before she knew it she was in the
hospital emergency room with doctors telling her she had a brain
tumor.
"Suddenly," she said, "you see your world around you
collapsing. I said, 'No, this can't be right. I'm not going to be
able to see my babies grow up.' "
With that, the
5-foot-4-inch, 110-pound Plano woman said, "I didn't take it
quietly. ... I don't take no for an answer."
After surgery,
radiation treatments, followed by a recurrence and a prognosis of
one month to live, Higgs finally went to M.D. Anderson Hospital in
Houston for a second opinion.
There, she would have even
more surgery and further treatment.
During her six-month
battle with brain cancer, Higgs passed the time by taking photos of
cloud formations and showing them to her children. In turn, she and
the kids would pour their ideas and hearts into the photo images.
As it turns out, the section of her brain to go was the
right temporal lobe.
"It's the area they call your 'creative
area,' " she says. "But I can still play the piano and I can still
draw."
And she can still write and publish a book. Indeed,
six years and hundreds of photos later, now that Higgs is fine, she
decided to do just that. Of course, a lot of people decide to write
a book and then never do it.
But Higgs did, taking a whole
summer off from her job as an executive assistant at Dresser
Industries to write the book.
Called "I've Seen the Clouds,
Looking Beyond Hope," it's a coffee table book of cloud photos with
inspirational quotes from Higgs.
It's the least she could
do.
"A lot of good has come from the bad," she says. "I am
much closer to my family than I was before."
She's also on
the steering committee at M.D. Anderson for the 2003 Brain Tumor
Conference to be held next spring in Houston.
And as a
member of that committee, she will also be speaking on her
experience with the disease, as well as offering hope to others.
"I love meeting and talking with new patients," she says.
"They really appreciate the contact with long-term survivors like
myself. It gives them comfort to see that surviving is possible, and
also helps take away a little bit of their fear."
She goes on
to explain that "every little twinge a new patient may have is like,
'Oh, my gosh, what's going on here? Has the cancer come back?'
"
Being there for others is just a matter of reciprocating.
"There was someone there for me," she says, "and I feel it's
important for me to be there for other people. To share my story
with others and to offer hope when all hope has been taken
away."
She tells them things like, "Your attitude is half the
battle."
When first diagnosed with the cancer, she was 33
years old and had never been sick, and so having the cancer was "so
out of the blue, it was like, where did this come from?"
Now
40, Higgs talks about growing up in Waco and then moving to Plano
with her husband and two children. She says her hobby is "writing
this book."
In fact, she says she didn't have any other
choice.
"After taking 300 to 400 cloud pictures, finally
you've got this stack of pictures and it's time to do something
about it."
Contact staff writer Shawn Floyd by phone at
972-543-2230 or email at floyds@dfwcn.com.
God Bless
Sheila! I have worked with her for years and her courage
and attitude has been an inspiration to me. Three years
ago, I was stricken with seizures and diagnosed with a
rare blood disease, APS,for short. I had always been a
very healthy person too. APS has left me in a
wheelchair, but renewed my faith and trust in God. I am
now able to work toward recovery. In some of my really
"cloudy" days, Sheila would visit me at Baylor Hospital.
Her visits always inspired me and my wife to carry on.
It is truly amazing what faith and prayer can
do!
Name: Bess
Tucker
Date: Aug, 31
2002
What an
inspiring story! Sheila must take after her Mom, Ann
Notgrass, who I have known for quiet awhile. Ann & I
worked at the same place, different departments though.
Ann lost her very best friend, Carmen, to cancer, so she
was not so lucky. I remember vividly that Carmen was
always there for Ann in her time of need when Sheila was
going through her her battle for life with cancer. Over
the years I have heard a lot of wonderful stories from
Ann about this very special daughter of hers. Bess
Tucker
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