Cancer patient proves to be inspiration to all

Cancer. Cancer is everywhere in our world now. We hear about a new person finding out they have cancer almost everyday.

Anita Sabatka, of Grand Island, has pancreatic cancer and has a close connection to The Eagle newspaper.

In 2010, when The Eagle newspaper won its first “Best in Overall Excellence” Award, the staff and Michael D. Kennedy, newspaper adviser, celebrated with a supper at Uncle Ed’s Steakhouse in Grand Island. While there, the staff met Sabatka. Every time staff members of The Eagle travel down east, they stop at Uncle Ed’s for supper and have remained in touch with Sabatka every time.

“He’s a good guy (Kennedy),” Sabatka said in late August. “I like him a lot. He always comes in and says hello to me.

“That award (NCMA’s ‘Best in Overall Excellence’ Award) has become kind of important to me too because he came here the first time they won,” Sabatka said.

In October 2014, staff members stopped at Uncle Ed’s after attending a meeting at Peru State College and found out Sabatka was sick.

On Oct. 6, 2014, Sabatka and her husband Ed went to a doctor in Omaha, where Anita was diagnosed on Oct. 7, 2014, with pancreatic cancer.

They found a softball-sized tumor. She remained in Omaha for seven days where they did many different scans including bone scans to see if the cancer had spread.

After her week in Omaha, Anita transferred her treatment to St. Francis Medical Center in Grand Island.

There she was put in touch with M. Sitki Copur, a National Cancer Institute trained oncologist. According to St. Francis’ website, Copur has been with the Cancer Treatment Center of St. Francis since 1995. He is the founder of the Medical Director of Oncology and also works at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He is certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. St. Francis’ Cancer Treatment Center has won the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Research Participation Award, ASCO Research Grand, Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI) certification and Outstanding Achievement Award by the American College of Surgeons since Copur has taken the leadership position at the center.

Under Copur’s care, Sabatka has “miraculously” reached remission. But it wasn’t an easy road.

“We use the word miraculously because that’s what it was,” Anita said.

After starting chemotherapy treatments, Anita said she doesn’t remember a lot of what happened. All she remembers is that she was “very ill.”

In the middle of October 2014, Anita’s cancer marker number was 650, which is a high Stage 3 cancer. That number quickly rose to 900, a Stage 4, by the middle of November 2014.

Anita was on pain medicine to bring her pain down to a five on a scale of 1-10. She took a trip to the emergency room in the middle of November because her pain had risen to a 10. The doctors then increased her medication by 50 percent to help with the pain.

By the middle of December, only three-four weeks later, her number “miraculously” dropped to 325.

Ed said Anita was not eating or drinking much in that time because she couldn’t keep anything down, but by January 2015, she was back to eating normally, she had no more pain medicine, and her number was 150.

When the number reaches 37, there is no cancer. She continued chemo treatments during this time and by March and April, her number was down to 44.

When Anita was in Omaha, the doctors gave her eight weeks to live. They told Ed to put her into hospice right away. The Grand Island doctors told her she had four to 2.5 years.

“They (Grand Island doctors) were optimistic the whole way through,” Anita said.

On July 1, 2015, Copur determined Anita to be in remission, after 25 days of radiation.

“The tumor itself can’t be taken out because it would be a very invasive surgery because the tumor is wrapped around major arteries and veins,” Anita said.

In August, she said she was still fighting the effects of chemo. A week after she was placed in remission, she fell and cracked a rib and that same week she got pink eye and strep throat because of her weakened immune system. After that was healed up, she got shingles. She said her hands and feet feel like they are asleep all of the time, due to neuropathy.

“But otherwise,” she said. “I feel just fine, just those little things that keep popping up.

“I’m glad to know that through all the prayers that our friends and our family and people who don’t even know me sent my way helped to get me to this point,” Anita said. “Because I am fully aware it was those prayers that got me to this point, along with the chemo yes. The two work together side-by-side.”

Anita said that coming that close to death has really opened her eyes and changed her personality. She said she is a lot softer and definitely more humble after that experience.

“It took both of them (God and Copur) to get me to where I’m at,” Anita said. “But I’m real optimistic of where we are and what we’ve accomplished I feel good about it all.”

Uncle Ed’s Steakhouse has been open in Grand Island for 17 years. Opened in 1998, Ed and Anita have run the restaurant together side-by-side from the beginning. Before the restaurant, the couple worked in catering together.

The restaurant was missing something for the nine months Anita was sick.

Kennedy said in October 2014 something felt different about the restaurant without Anita there.

Ed said it was hard to come to work without Anita to help him and business suffered.

“It was a tough nine months, it truly was,” Anita said. “Physically, financially, emotionally, there are not enough words to describe how tough it was because it was one of the toughest times in both of our lives.”

Anita did all of the bookkeeping for the restaurant and so that got behind while she was out. She also cooked the lunches and ran the concession stands, and those things just didn’t happen as smoothly without Anita.

The concession stands were closed, the lunches were closed for almost five months, and the evenings suffered, Ed said. Things were just starting to pick back up in the last couple months, Ed said in August.

“We couldn’t run it all with my absence,” Anita said. “It was a severe detriment to our business because Ed could not do it all.”

In January, two friends of the couple organized a benefit to help the couple with expenses.

“We cannot thank them enough,” Anita said. “I am very appreciative of all of our friends, family, and people we didn’t even know, who came to the benefit and donated. It was a fantastic event.”

Anita said that since Ed and her do not have kids of their own, they really relied on Anita’s family for help. She said her 83-year-old father stayed with her during most of her hospitalizations and drove 3.5 hours one way to be at every doctors appointment, every chemo treatment, and was there at the start of radiation. She said he was even there for the final appointment when they found out she was in remission.

Anita’s sister came and cleaned and sanitized her house so Anita didn’t get sicker in any way.

One of Anita’s brothers cut her hair for her. She decided not to shave all of her hair, but cut it to about 1.5 inches long. He said that was one the hardest things he ever had to do.

Anita never did end up losing her hair so she is grateful she made the decision to not shave it.

Anita’s other brother “sent many prayers my way,” Anita said.