Valparaiso resident Roberta Tuft is a thyroid cancer survivor who has survived cancer not once but twice. Her journey started just before Thanksgiving in 2006. She went in to see Dr. John Carter, her primary doctor in Hobart because she was having difficulty swallowing her vitamins and was constantly tired.
“I thought that it's just life,” said Tuft. “I had a very active 8-year-old boy and a busy full-time job. The doctor examined me and saw that my esophagus was just off midline.”
From there, Carter had Tuft do a nuclear medicine study and biopsy at St. Mary’s Medical Center. When the results came back, they showed Tuft had cancer.
“It is something you hear about other people but you don't hear that about yourself,” said Tuft. “It was a very difficult diagnosis for me. I instantly heard the word, and I assigned myself a death sentence.”
Tuft went to a dark place and became reclusive. She could not get out of bed for days. She couldn’t eat or drink. Her husband at the time, Scott Tuft, became worried. The thought of leaving her young son without a mother weighed on her. She started to write letters for her son and husband to read on future occasions.
“He was a big fan of basketball, so I wrote letters about victories and losses,” said Tuft. “I wrote for his graduations, getting his license, his wedding day, and when he was going to have children.”
One evening while sitting in her bedroom, Tuft found her strength. Tuft’s friend and neighbor, Michelle Bobas, came to the house determined to see her friend.
“I could hear her very boldly say ‘I am not here for her, I'm here for me,' said Tuft. “She came upstairs, sat next to me, and really gave me the strength to fight. She said all the right things, and she found a way to make me laugh. When I walked her downstairs, that was a turning point for me.”
After that moment, Tuft was undaunted by what came next. She had her first surgery at the end of December 2006. Tuft then started a special diet with no iodine in order to be ready for her radioactive iodine dose treatment.
“I had to be on a special diet, and that was a very difficult thing for me because I was very weak,” said Tuft.
Just three months later Tuft would go into the University of Chicago Medical Center to receive her treatment. It would consist of her taking a radioactive iodine pill followed by six days of isolation.
“The entire room was covered in plastic, and it felt like this big science project,” said Tuft. “It was very daunting—you're sick, you don't feel well, and you can't see your loved ones. When I got home, I had to be away from my son for a week or two until the radioactivity died down from my body and I became safe for the general population again.“
Despite the treatment and surgery, in June of 2007, Tuft found herself facing the whole journey all over again. Her doctors told her that she still had the cancer. Nevertheless, Tuft persisted through a second surgery and round of treatment, and she had her clean positron emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT) scans.
“By June of that following year, 2008, I finally got my first clean CT scan, and then my clean PET scan which is the ultimate reward for any cancer patient,” said Tuft. “I got the results and my son was 10 by then. Here we were, finally on our way to a healthy journey. I beat cancer not once but twice.”
Tuft is now celebrating her 15th cancer-free year. She gets to continue making so many memories and being there for many of the moments for her son.
“I feel fantastic,” said Tuft. “I really believe that in my life, my greatest asset is my loved ones and the memories that I create.”