Ovarian Cancer Patient Carol Sullivan

Ovarian Cancer Survivor
Chooses Positivity
Carol “Sully” Sullivan was on her fifth or so round of chemotherapy treatments for stage 3
ovarian cancer. All of her hair had fallen out, every last bit, so she penciled in eyebrows for
a round of pickleball with her league in Hardeeville, a town not quite 25 miles from Hilton
Head Island.
But it was one of those hot, sweaty South Carolina days and, without thinking, she wiped
the sweat away. In between rounds, standing around with the other players and the
spectators, her wife, Joan, noticed brown marks on Carol’s sleeve.
“What’s that on your sleeve?” Joan asked.
Carol’s penciled-in eyebrows were no longer on her face. Their smudged remnants
were smeared across her sleeve.
“Oh my gosh — those are my eyebrows!” Carol exclaimed. The entire group
seemed to hold its breath, not sure how to react.
Carol, though, laughed uproariously.
“And to think, they came out good today!” she laughed, and the group broke
into laughter.
“People look for your reaction to know how to react themselves,” Carol
said.
“It's looking at positivity as a mirror,” she explained. “It’s kind of
how I looked at life in general before this. I've been blessed.
I'm a very positive person. But I think the analogy I came
up with is to be a mirror. What it does is allows you to
be surrounded by people in a positive light versus a
negative light.”
“People definitely look for cues from the person,”
Joan added. They live in a tightknit, over-55
community, Latitude Margaritaville, that rallied
around them.
“When you laughed, everybody laughed.
When you cried, everybody cried,” she told
Carol.
In fact, when 2022 rolled over to 2023, their
friends all commiserated that Carol must be
so glad to put the year behind her.
“And I'm like, ‘I don't want to forget that
year,’” Carol said. “It was an amazing
experience overall. It has made me who I
am today. I met some amazing people. The
nursing staff on 7West — they are family.
They will always be my family. All the folks
that are on Dr. Orr’s team — I wouldn't
have met them otherwise.”
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HOLLINGS HORIZONS Fall 2023

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