Nicole Elliott is confident that she is on her way to recovery after two bouts with cancer in the previous three years.
The first was breast cancer, which she was diagnosed with in 2015. Then came lung cancer in 2017.
It’s still emotional for her to share her story, as she cried a couple of times during an interview with the Mercury about her experiences, but she wants people to know about the quality care she received, the love from her family and friends, and the support she has received from the community.
Elliott was diagnosed with breast cancer on May 25, 2015. Immediately after that diagnosis, she went through a series of scans, tests, and biopsies to determine how far along the cancer was; it turned out she was in Stage 2.
In July of that year, she underwent a bilateral mastectomy and the start of immediate reconstruction.
“They gave me six weeks to recover from that surgery, and then I was back up to Regina again to begin six months of chemotherapy treatment,” said Elliott.
Her “chemotherapy cocktail” included three different types of chemo. After four weeks to recover following her last chemo treatment, she started radiation, which consisted of 25 sessions.
Elliott was living in Regina at that time, because radiation needs to happen every weekday.
Physiotherapy happened once a week at first to rebuild the mobility in her shoulders and arms, but that was then reduced to once every other week.
In September 2016, she went back to work as a constable with the Estevan Police Service (EPS), which helped her find a level of normalcy in her life. Everything was going well until August 2017, when she encountered what she called “divine intervention.”
She had an appointment with her surgeon to finish her reconstruction following her first cancer fight. The surgeon ordered a scan on her abdomen, and a full scan found a tumour in her left lung.
She returned to her oncologist, and once again started undergoing numerous scans, tests and biopsies. She was told it was the same cancer that had returned to her lungs.
“It was metastasized breast cancer, which is Stage 4,” said Elliott.
Due to the location of the cancer, they had to remove half of her left lung during the surgery.
After a few weeks of recovery, she was back into chemotherapy; this time her cocktail consisted of two different types of chemo, with one treatment each week, three of every four weeks.
Her last chemotherapy treatment was on April 17 of this year, but there were concerns about a lesion on her uterus, so she had a complete hysterectomy.
Elliott also underwent stem cell treatments at a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, as part of her cancer treatments.
“It went well,” she said. “I felt great. I came home. I have been recovering ever since.”
At first she was terrified of the stem cell treatment, because she had no idea what to expect, and she had not received any kind of care outside of Canada. But the people at the clinic made sure she was comfortable, and it proved to be a favourable experience.
“In my experience, everything truly was on the ball. I did not have to wait for anything. My treatments were quick. The start of my treatments was quick. The medical staff, the surgeons, the oncologists, the nurses, they make an extremely terrifying and uncomfortable situation bearable,” she said.
That treatment was only possible through the support of the people in Estevan, thanks to a pair of fundraisers. One was Rockin’ for Nicole, a cabaret that featured the band Sentinel; their drummer is a cousin of Elliott’s.
The other was a banquet a few weeks later that attracted hundreds of people.
“For me, being a police officer in this community, it’s my job to be out here protecting and being of service to everybody in our community, and to see, when I saw pictures and videos of all the people that were there that night, it blew me away, because the people that I’m supposed to be out there protecting … they were out there protecting me.”
Every three months, she has a scan and doctor’s appointments, and she is pleased to say that her last two scans have come back clear.
“I feel really, really good. I’m grateful every single day when I wake up for my friends, for my family, and for everybody in this community, because of all the help that I have received,” said Elliott.
She believes the prayers have been answered, because she’s still alive.
Elliott credited her family for helping her through the last three years. They have been there since Day 1, helping with her boys, ages 13 and six. Her parents and in-laws have taken turns to look after the boys when she has been recovering from surgeries and chemotherapy, allowing her husband to keep working.
“I don’t know anybody who can go through this process, through this disease, without their support group,” said Elliott. “Whether that be their family or friends, they made it so that I know I can beat this.”
Elliott was selected for the Cameco Touchdown for Dreams program, which gives women with a life-threatening diagnosis of cancer a chance to fulfill a dream. She has actually had two dreams happen.
The first was to go to California in May to watch her son’s water polo tournament.
The other came when Saskatchewan Roughriders defensive end Willie Jefferson gave her two of his personal season tickets so that she could attend all of the Rider games this season.
Elliott is looking forward to resuming her career as a police officer, but she doesn’t know when it will happen. She still has quite a road of recovery ahead of her, with another surgery scheduled in 2019, but after that she hopes to be back to active duty.
