(Editor’s note: The following is the first in a series of articles with cancer survivors in recognition of the upcoming Webster County Relay for Life on Friday, May 14.)

Sitting in the nurse’s station where she works, Sara Beth Todd of Providence called her experience with stage four cancer a “miracle.”

“After three months of chemo, all my markers have been normal,” said Todd, who was diagnosed in October after falling on a flight stairs.

“I was climbing up the stairway when my right hip shattered,” she said as she recalled the night she was told of her condition. “I had bone cancer that had metastasized from breast cancer.”

Following immediate surgery for partial hip replacement, Todd began taking chemotherapy to fight the cancer. She said she didn’t suspect she had cancer prior to the diagnosis.

“I’d been having pain in my legs,” she said, noting that she attributed that to fibromyalgia, something she is also battling.

Todd begin by taking chemotherapy orally as well as intravenously. She underwent physical therapy sessions at home. Now, she is down to taking chemotherapy once per month, and she said in her latest series of tests last week, doctors determined the tumors had shrunk to a level where they were no longer detectable.

Calling it a “miracle,” Todd said she was grateful to God, to her family and friends who prayed for her, and her doctors for her recovery.

“I know that going through it, if not for God and friends, you wouldn’t make it,” she said.

When asked if her experience as a nurse helped prepare her for undergoing cancer treatment, Todd said she has “always tried to have a positive attitude about illnesses,” but quickly added that “knowledge is a dangerous thing,” as she laughed.

Todd said her experience with cancer has given her a new perspective on helping other people with the illness.

“This makes you aware, and helps with being more compassionate,” she said.

This is not Todd’s first personal experience with cancer, either. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer almost 40 years ago. She said her mother was a cancer survivor and passed away in 1991 from an unrelated illness.

Todd said she hopes to attend this year’s Webster County Relay for Life on Friday, May 14.

“I’ve always been a Relay supporter,” she said. “There are so many survivors because of the work they do.”

Todd and her husband of almost 37 years, Larry, have two sons, Greg, and Jeff.