Written by Newspaper Staff Reporter Avery Myers

This year, Allatoona has crowned Sarah Whaley as the Turner’s Heroes Honorary Captain. Sarah is a sophomore and a part of Friend’s Club. She was accepted into the Varsity Tennis team last year, but she started her own battle with cancer shortly afterward. Sarah says, “I had started feeling kinda weird and just not myself in December. On January 19th, I tried out for the girls’ variety tennis team, and during the warmup laps, it felt like my right lung had just completely shut off. I couldn’t breathe, so I took my inhaler and continued.” Sarah was able to make the team but says that on another day, “I went to do a drill I’ve done a hundred times in literally 100-degree weather. I did three, collapsed, and blacked out for a few minutes. My mom gave me an inhaler, and I still couldn’t breathe easily, so we rushed to an urgent care for a treatment and steroid shot.  The doctor pulled my mom out and told her he thought I had cancer!” After waiting many hours and being transferred to multiple hospitals, once even by helicopter, the doctors finally gave Sarah a specific diagnosis and treatment plan. She says she was diagnosed with “Primary Mediastinal Large B Cell Lymphoma, a CURABLE cancer! However, the treatment was still intense! Six rounds of chemo and each chemo lasting 96 hours straight!” Sarah endured even more trials after this when she had a fever, causing the doctors to draw multiple blood transfusions. Nevertheless, Sarah was able to ring the bell on May 16th to signal the end of her chemotherapy. Since then, Sarah reports, “Recovery is extremely challenging, and a pandemic doesn’t help in the slightest! I have physical therapy and speech therapy because my tumor crushed the nerve controlling my right vocal cord, so it’s become paralyzed. I have learned to compensate and can be heard now in a room with noise! What we have found out is cancer is a lonely disease, but cancer in a pandemic is unimaginable.” Sarah’s journey is a remarkable story of hope and an example of how the fight against cancer is a necessary endeavor. Allatoona takes part in this fight by hosting Turner’s Heroes. It is a time where we can honor one of our own alumni that was lost due to cancer and collect donations to further cancer research and aid cancer patients. As our honorary captain, Sarah claims she plans on “showing that life sucks sometimes and life can be brutal, but if you don’t give up and keep pushing, you will get through! I’m just so humbled and appreciative that Allatoona would choose me to honor the school!” You can help honor the school and contribute to Turner’s Heroes by buying t-shirts and capes or even donating directly. All of the information can be found on Allatoona’s website.