5/3/07

Summerton couple battles cancer and survives!
By Cathy Gilbert

CATHY GILBERT/Manning Times

John and Mary Canty have both faced cancer and credit their great medical team and extended family with Mary’s recovery.

When Mary Canty of Summerton started having trouble swallowing in 2005, she thought she was experiencing symptoms of a hiatal hernia that had been plaguing her for more than a year.

“I was coughing while trying to sing in the choir,” she said. The aggravation sent the 79-year-old retired hospital technician back to her doctor, who had moved to Conway.

A hiatal hernia is when the stomach bulges up through an opening in the diaphragm – the hiatus – often causing severe heartburn and chest pain that is sometimes mistaken for a heart attack.

For Mary Canty, what she was experiencing was not her hernia acting up.

This was much more serious.

Following referral to a specialist and a battery of tests, Mary was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.

Esophageal cancer occurs when cancer cells develop in the esophagus, a tube-like structure that runs from your throat to your stomach. Food goes from the mouth to the stomach through the esophagus. The cancer starts at the inner layer of the esophagus and can spread throughout the other layers of the esophagus and to other parts of the body (metastasis).

While esophageal cancer used to mean open chest surgery, today doctors, including those caring for Mary Canty, use a combination of intensive radiation therapy coupled with chemotherapy.
Mary underwent treatment last year in April through July.

“She started coming back to herself just last October,” said Mary’s husband, John, himself a 13-year prostate cancer survivor.

Mary Canty returns for follow up check ups every three months and credits Drs. Duffy and Clowney in Sumter with her good care.

While the Canty’s won’t be on-site for the May 11 Relay for Life, they are nevertheless firm supporters.

A Relay for Life banner graces their lovely Summerton home’s front yard and through their network of friends and supporters, have raised over $300.

“We were so blessed to have so much extended family rally around us,” Mary explained. While the couple has no children of their own, they have many nieces and nephews who are like children to them, and have been there every step of Mary’s cancer journey.

Relay for Life will take place at Carl Ramsey Stadium at Manning High School on May 11. All cancer survivors are invited to take part in the Survivor’s Lap, an exhilarating part of the overnight event.

For more information about Clarendon Relay for Life, contact event chair Kristi Downer at 435-8115.