Sherry Tankersley was healthy. The wife of a railroad engineer and a full-time mother in Cullman, Alabama, she was too busy chasing her two young children around to think about the possibility of getting sick.

But in early 2006, Mrs. Tankersley began suffering from sore throats, which at first she chalked up to winter weather and perhaps a cold. When the sore throats didn’t go away, she sought medical help and had multiple biopsies from April through July. The biopsies weren’t able to identify the problem, so in July, Mrs. Tankersley sought a second opinion from Glenn Peters, M.D., a head and neck surgeon with the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. “When he saw me, he immediately knew where it was and how to get it,” she says. “He did my biopsy, and it was squamous cell carcinoma.”

Within a week, Mrs. Tankersley was preparing for her treatments. UAB specialists developed a plan for her that included Erbitux, a new drug designed to inhibit tumor growth. Because the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center was participating in a clinical trial for Erbitux, Mrs. Tankersley was among the first patients to benefit from a therapy that was not yet available everywhere.

For Mrs. Tankersley, the toughest part of her treatment was giving up her role of caregiver and allowing others to take care of her. “I had to let family members, friends, and church members take care of me and my home and my children through my treatments,” she says. “I had to let go, which was very difficult for me to do, but I had great people surrounding me—a wonderful support system.”

Once her treatments were complete, Mrs. Tankersley began rehabilitation. She had to have dilations of her esophagus, which had shrunk during the treatments, and she had to learn to swallow again. “The first time I was able to eat a cheeseburger was great,” she says. “Just being able to swallow food again was a great feeling.”

Mrs. Tankersley says her struggle with cancer has helped her better appreciate the life she has. “Anytime I go to any of my daughter’s recitals or her ball games where she’s throwing a baton—or when I watch my little boy do something I’ve never seen before—I remember a point in my life when I was afraid that I was never going to see those things again,” she says. “I get tears in my eyes just knowing that I’m able to be there.”