Ashley Hallford Story

9 years ago, at 26 years old, I was diagnosed with cancer. I was 32 weeks pregnant with my first child. I had discovered a knot in my neck before I was even pregnant. I thought it was a swollen lymph node and didn’t think much else of it. After I became pregnant, this knot began to change. It grew, and became hard and painful. I saw an ENT who thought the knot was an infected salivary gland and he treated me with antibiotics. It never fully went away, but the antibiotics helped. I even had an ultrasound on this knot during my pregnancy and the radiologist thought that I possibly had a stone in my salivary gland and there was no need to be concerned. When I was 32 weeks pregnant, the knot grew aggressively and would no longer respond to the antibiotics. I asked my doctor to please do a biopsy because I was fearful that it could be cancer. The day after I had the biopsy, I got the call no one ever wants to get. I had cancer.My labor was induced at 33 weeks so that I could have surgery to remove the tumor. Our son was born breathing on his own, kicking, and crying. He was just absolutely perfect. He never went to the NICU one time, not even to be evaluated. The NICU doctor came to our room later that night and he told me that in all his years of being a NICU doctor, he had never seen a 33 week preemie not go to the NICU for at least an evaluation.
Four days later, I was taken into surgery to remove the mass in my neck. The surgeon removed a softball sized tumor from my neck. The tumor had grown finger like tumors that had wrapped around my jaw bone and grew into my jaw muscle. When the surgeon came to talk to us the next day though, he was confident that he had removed everything and that there was a possibility that I wouldn’t have to have chemo or radiation.
But, sadly, that wasn’t the case. Within weeks, the cancer had spread to my brain, both lungs, and a spot on my liver. The tumor in my brain sat on my right optic nerve in an area of the brain called the cavernous sinus. When the doctor told me about the brain tumor, I asked him if we were going to do surgery to remove it. He told me that area of the brain is an area that houses nerves and blood vessels. I’ll never forget his exact statement that day when he said, “only God’s hands can go there.” He said we will try radiation and go from there. This tumor caused my right eye to lose all function, and become fixed. Soon, I lost all function of my eyelid, and it closed. I could not open it at all.
Pathologists around the country were looking at my tumor and no one, even to this day, could determine what type of cancer it was. We even flew to Boston to seek treatment from a specialized oncologist at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. He had no answers either, and just sent us back home. In the end, I was put on 2 types of chemotherapy and given a lifetime maximum dose of radiation to my brain, jaw, and neck. The only thing the pathologists could say about my cancer was that it was rare and very, very aggressive.
After about one month of treatment, I had a CT Scan to see how my body was responding to the chemo and radiation. The tumors were not only growing in size, but also in quantity. The report on my lungs stated that there were “innumerable tumors present on both lungs.” Meaning they literally could not count the number of tumors present.
There wasn’t much hope. I was told to start taking pictures, making videos, and writing journals for our son, who would most likely grow up without his mother. The next month, members of my church signed up for days that they would be fasting and praying for my healing. Every day for one whole month, two or more people were fasting and praying for me.
There were days I begged God to just take me. The pain was too much. But, minutes later, I’d be begging him to forgive me and to please heal me. There was no way I was giving up. After seeing that the chemo wasn’t working, my doctor switched me to a different chemo combination to see if it would help. I continued the chemotherapy for about four more months before my next CT Scan. The day I went to the oncologist for the results I prayed there would be some change. Anything positive would be a miracle. I’ll never forget my doctor’s words, “The radiologist reports there is NO evidence of disease present.” I was in shock I think, and I asked her, well what exactly does that mean? She said, “It means the cancer is in remission.” I had went from no hope to no cancer in a matter of months.
Psalm 30:2 “O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.” We were told we wouldn’t be able to have any more children because of the chemotherapy. We have since had two more children, a girl and a boy. We have two videos on Youtube. You can find them by searching “adhallford” on Youtube. The videos are called “Hope” and “Hope in the Battle.”