Before March 2020, Kelly Ryan lived a very healthy life. She was a Practice Manager for a Medical Office in Ocala, Florida, and was known as a workaholic who maintained a lifestyle of health and fitness. However, this was all prior to March of 2020, the start of a very dark time in Kelly’s life, eventually leading to a diagnosis of Stage 4 Glioblastoma, more commonly known as brain cancer.
For over two years, Kelly experienced left-sided headaches that increased in intensity, eventually resulting in a grand mal seizure. After speaking to professionals, she was diagnosed with a stroke. As a worker in the medical field, Kelly was skeptical of this diagnosis, so she began to research and reached out to a neurologist. Kelly recalls the conversation well, “I explained my symptoms, and [the neurologist] ordered a STAT MRS. After the MRS, I received a call and was told I needed surgery. So, on April 22, 2020, I had a craniotomy, and the preliminary results were Stage 4 Glioblastoma.”
After her diagnosis, Kelly faced a long line of treatments, including chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and a craniectomy. She was forced to take on both chemotherapy and radiation at the very same time, wearing Kelly down to extremely low levels of energy. The most difficult time Kelly encountered was the day she learned that she had 12 to 18 months to live, causing much harm to her mental health. However, none of this could stop Kelly from maintaining her passion for fitness by getting out and walking between two and five miles a day.
In addition to the exercise, Kelly maintained her healthy lifestyle by prioritizing her nutrition, mainly eating fruits and salads. Even before her diagnosis, she focused her diet on healthy foods, making it much easier to do the same afterward. For her mental health, Kelly received massages, allowing her to free her mind from all the stresses associated with this extremely difficult process. Kelly believed that being healthy while going through this process has helped her immensely, even being told so by her doctors. She also thought that those who may not live a healthy lifestyle have a major disadvantage when facing cancer, stating that those who go into a battle with any kind of cancer while living an unhealthy lifestyle “already have a strike against them.”
In Kelly’s circumstance, living with Glioblastoma will never allow her to be in remission, only in a stable state. She says it best in her own words: “This is my new normal, and it changes all the time.” Nowadays, Kelly is enjoying life every day; getting back to her old exercise habits, most recently running a half marathon in Savannah, Georgia; and traveling the world at every possible moment. Additionally, Kelly has become an advocate for those struggling with Glioblastoma, helping many on their journeys to overcome brain cancer. All of this was made possible by the realization of strength that Kelly made while on her own journey with Glioblastoma. She always knew she was strong but never realized how strong she could be by overcoming many obstacles and now leading efforts to help many suffering patients.
Photos used with permission of Kelly Ryan
