Bonnie’s Story: The Shirt That Marked a Milestone in Recovery

Bon­nie Sor­rells had been expe­ri­enc­ing acid reflux for years, which she self-treat­ed with over-the-counter med­ica­tion — until one day she had dif­fi­cul­ty swallowing.

“It was like some­one took a pine cone and drug it down my throat and down to my stom­ach. I couldn’t even stand to swal­low water,” she said.

She called her gas­troen­terol­o­gist at the time, retired physi­cian Dr. John Bozdech, with Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG), who sched­uled an endoscopy, a test that looks at the inside of one’s esoph­a­gus, stom­ach, and the first part of the small intes­tine, called the duo­de­num. The test was per­formed on March 30, 2021, and two days lat­er, Sor­rells got the results.

“It was April 1^st at 6:15 p.m. on a Thurs­day in 2021. Dr. Bozdech called and the first thing I said when I heard the news was, ​‘Are you kid­ding me?’ I couldn’t believe it,” Sor­rells said. ​“It was ade­no­car­ci­no­ma can­cer. The can­cer was two inch­es in length and was in the bot­tom part of my esoph­a­gus and the top part of my stomach.”

The news was shock­ing, but her med­ical team at QMG got to work quick­ly. On April 2, she spoke with the office of Dr. Ray­mond Smith, QMG Med­ical Oncol­o­gist, and had her first appoint­ment with him on April 5. A con­sul­ta­tion with a sur­geon at Barnes-Jew­ish Hos­pi­tal in St. Louis had been arranged. She also informed her pri­ma­ry care provider, Dr. Jen­nifer Schroed­er at the QMG Mt. Ster­ling (IL) Clinic.

On April 12, Sor­rells had a PET scan, a scan that helps detect can­cer, and began her treat­ment reg­i­men, which includ­ed 28 radi­a­tion treat­ments and six rounds of chemotherapy.

On her first day of radi­a­tion, a dis­play of bracelets caught her eye. She picked one up and the mes­sage she saw would be one that would see her through the days and months ahead of her.

“The bracelets said ​‘No one fights alone’ and I felt that. I knew I wasn’t alone in this and that the team at QMG was going to be with me,” she said.

She was bol­stered by that sup­port, espe­cial­ly in her low­er moments. One par­tic­u­lar moment rep­re­sent­ed a turn­ing point for her mind­set about her disease.

“There was a day dur­ing one of my chemother­a­py treat­ments when I was real­ly upset. My head hurt, and my hair was falling out,” she said. ​“One of the nurs­es explained, ​‘Right now chemo is con­trol­ling your can­cer, but you don’t have to let it con­trol you.’ Oh my gosh! It put me in such a bet­ter perspective.”

Sor­rells went home that day and decid­ed to take action. She and her hus­band, Steve, shaved her head together.

“Her words were life-chang­ing for me. I couldn’t han­dle the bits and pieces of my hair falling out,” she said. ​“So we went out on the deck, I held a mir­ror in front of me and we used clip­pers that you can set at dif­fer­ent lengths. So, he would take one length off and then we would talk. Then he would take anoth­er length, then we would talk. We did it gradually.”

Her next step was to have surgery with a spe­cial­ized sur­geon at Barnes-Jew­ish Hos­pi­tal in St. Louis.

“The doc­tor in St. Louis was so amazed by how much the team at Quin­cy Med­ical Group had shrunk my can­cer,” she said.

The surgery was much more sig­nif­i­cant than she antic­i­pat­ed. Bonnie’s recov­ery was long and dif­fi­cult, and it took her 14 months to return to her dai­ly routine.

“I was in Barnes for nine days. They removed two-thirds of my esoph­a­gus and the top part of my stom­ach and brought my stom­ach up to form a new esoph­a­gus. It was a much big­ger deal than I could have ever imag­ined,” she shared.

As a result of the surgery and can­cer treat­ment, Sor­rells lost weight — going from 163 pounds to 93 pounds. She again received reas­sur­ing words from her new gas­troen­terol­o­gist, Dr. John Barba­gio­van­ni.

“I cried every time I saw myself in the mir­ror. Dr. Barba­gio­van­ni drew on a piece of paper and said, ​‘This was your stom­ach. This is your stom­ach now. This may be all you’re ever going to weigh and that’s ok. As long as you don’t lose more,’” she recalled. ​“Hear­ing that helped me so much. He put me in a bet­ter frame of mind to accept where I was.”

Dur­ing her recov­ery, her hus­band sug­gest­ed she get a can­cer sur­vivor shirt. She wasn’t ready. She want­ed to wait for a while until she knew for cer­tain she was can­cer-free. Until that day came, she start­ed to gath­er some ideas for the shirt and enlist­ed the help of KLC, Inc., in Mt. Ster­ling. Togeth­er they land­ed on a design.

On the front, it has a but­ter­fly, a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of feel­ing free, as well as box­ing gloves to show the fight it takes to bat­tle chancer. On the back, it has the mes­sage ​“Fight Acid Reflux, Beat Esophageal Can­cer.” The t‑shirt was her way of build­ing aware­ness and inspir­ing oth­ers to take acid reflux seri­ous­ly and see their doctor.

Once she got back results from her CT scan, she was ready to put her t‑shirt on. The shirt rep­re­sent­ed some­thing big­ger — her tri­umph over esophageal can­cer and the strength and resilience it took to get her to this point.

“I remem­ber at the begin­ning of all this, I said, ​‘I’ll be glad when I get to the day when I can look back and say I can’t believe we got through this,’” she explained. ​“When I put on that shirt, I loved it. I don’t know how to express it. I was proud.”

Sor­rells is inspired to build aware­ness of esophageal can­cer and acid reflux. She con­tin­ues vis­its with Dr. Barba­gio­van­ni, Dr. Schroed­er, and Dr. Smith.