Share the love for Sheri Zambruski

If you are reading this, then you are lucky enough to somehow be connected to our amazing friend Sheri Zambruski.  
Sheri is a massage therapist at Mercy Hospital whose kind heart and healing spirit bring so much joy and peace to this world.  If you know Sheri then you know she’d rather offer a kindness to you than think about herself. 
However, last November the world turned upside down for Sheri and her family and she no longer has the luxury of putting others first. Now every ounce of her being, her faith, hope, and trust has to center around her and her medical team as she undertakes the roller coaster ride of her life- a ride no one wants to be on.

On January 10, 2019, after months of debilitating back pain and headaches that left her unable to work, Sheri was diagnosed with Chondrosarcoma, a rare and malignant tumor in her pelvis.  At the same time, a second mass was discovered in Sheri’s neck. 
A world-class team at Siteman Cancer Center elected to remove the pelvic mass first due to the damage it was inflicting but this surgery was not for the faint of heart.
On April 2, 2019, Sheri’s sacrum was removed and a cage was used to rebuild this area so that she can eventually walk again.  The lower region of her back was fused and two nerves had to be removed, resulting in drop foot. She endured a nine day hospital stay and an additional fourteen days of intense in-patient rehab, and now, finally, is home temporarily with the family she adores. 
There’s no place like home, but for Sheri it’s been at a price. She needs a lift, a wheelchair, and a walker to get around. Just getting back on her feet to walk is expected to be every bit of one year. Sheri has remained solid in her faith and her belief that this is something she will overcome, and her perspective is nothing short of remarkable. Through it all, she has still turned every “How are you?” she’s been asked into “What about you, what’s going on with you?”

It would be nice to think this is the end of Sheri’s surgery trials but there is still the other tumor to deal with and the urgency it presents. We hope the next surgery to be after Ryan’s graduation, but there is a possibility it can’t wait.
The 8-10 hour procedure is very complicated and dangerous, requiring hospitalization three days prior for pre-op preparation.  She will be intubated in ICU for two days after, then onto a neurosurgery floor for 3-5 days, and still will face another rehab as well as radiation therapy after that.  It is scary and it is daunting.

Sheri has shown more grace, more dignity, and extraordinary acceptance than one can imagine. She takes joy in Ryan’s accomplishments and Steve’s caretaking, in the love of her sister and her mother, and all the family and friends who support her.