One Woman’s Resolve to Beat Cancer During COVID Ricky Carioti and Annie Gowen - Washington Post
go to original December 14, 2021

When Djohariah Singer was diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer two years ago, she fully expected to beat the disease - despite long odds.

But the pandemic hit just a few months after her first surgery, to remove her reproductive organs. The cancer had spread throughout her body, complicating Singer’s battle to stay alive even as she endured debilitating chemo and further surgeries. Since the beginning of the pandemic, she has sheltered in place with her partner and teenage daughter at their home in Middletown, Md., venturing out only for her medical appointments and emergencies.

Singer, 52, has been fighting a two-front battle for two years - trying to heal her body from the ravages of cancer and outlast the pandemic, which shows no sign of abating. But she says she has come to see her fight more as a dance than a war.

“I see myself fighting in a different way,” she said. “My life isn’t about beating cancer, my life is going to be how do I live with cancer. And the more I can learn to dance with this, the more gracefully I dance with it, the longer I will live.”

Singer was preparing to teach her kindergarten art class in Hagerstown one day in late 2019 when her cellphone buzzed. It was bloodwork results from her doctor. She had been suffering from stomach and groin pain for nearly a month, but doctors had not determined the cause. She took a peek and was shocked to see that one of the numbers was way off: The marker for ovarian cancer was sky-high.

The following day, an oncologist confirmed the news. She had Stage 4 ovarian cancer and needed emergency surgery at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. Doctors ultimately found that the cancer had spread to her cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, colon, appendix, spleen and part of her liver and diaphragm. She learned she had only a 10 percent chance of surviving five years.

But Singer, a former police officer who had overcome a troubled childhood - including an alcoholic father - and an abusive marriage, knew she was a survivor. In addition to beginning a grueling chemotherapy regimen, she made major lifestyle changes, including eliminating meat, dairy and sugar from her diet. She added acupuncture treatments and Chinese herbs and started practicing qi gong, which combines Buddhism, Taoism, traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts for therapeutic effect.

“I fully expect to beat the odds this time. I’m juicing... everything, exercising, doing everything I possibly can,” she said. “But cells are microscopic, and it just takes one to split into two.”

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