Marine Corps Base Quantico
QUANTICO, Va., Dec. 8, 2014 – Marine Corps Sgt. Jennifer
Suarez has looked death in the face and said, “I am not ready to go yet.”
Suarez, the commanding officer’s driver at The Basic School
here, was medically retired as a corporal in 2007 due to brain cancer. After
surgery, months of radiation and chemotherapy and a lengthy convalescent
period, she is back on active duty today, serving in a full-duty status.
A native of Springfield, Virginia, Suarez enlisted in the
Marine Corps at age 17. At her second duty station, she said, she was five
months pregnant with her son when she started having muscle spasms on her left
side. While she was out for breakfast with her husband on Mother’s Day, her
left hand and arm began having uncontrollable spasms. Her husband, also a
Marine, rushed her to the hospital at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton,
California, where she underwent a brain scan that revealed a mass in her brain.
Tumor Discovered, Complicated by Pregnancy
After being transferred to Balboa Hospital Naval Medical
Center in San Diego, Suarez learned she had a golf-ball-sized brain tumor
called an astrocytoma. Because she was pregnant, her treatment would need to be
delayed, though doctors would deliver her son early.
Though she was devastated, Suarez said, she felt that she
had to be strong for her husband, who had started crying when they received the
news.
On July 5, 2006, the Suarezes’ son, Anthony, was delivered,
and it became immediately clear that something was wrong. Doctors told them
their son had heart and lung failure, and whisked him away to the neonatal
intensive care unit. Jennifer Suarez was in shock.
“I couldn’t believe what was happening,” she said. “I asked,
‘Why was everything in my life falling apart? They told me he would be fine!’”
She said doctors told her their son should receive an
emergency baptism, because it was likely that he would not survive. Contrary to
all expectations, however, Anthony began to thrive. He was released from the
hospital only two-and-a-half weeks after his birth.
Surgery Could Remove Only Half of the Tumor
Suarez’s brain surgery was scheduled for Sept. 25, 2006.
Because the tumor was growing into her motor cortex, she said, doctors were
able to remove only about half of it. When she awoke from surgery, her left leg
was paralyzed -- Suarez said her doctor thought it might be a temporary problem
caused by swelling from the surgery -- and she was given a walker. Suarez was
released from the hospital after about five days.
Highly motivated to recover, she began to use her walker
right away upon arriving home. Though at first she was able only to drag her
left foot, she was walking on her own again by Thanksgiving.
In April 2007, Suarez started chemotherapy and began taking
Temodar -- “horse pills” that left her feeling drained and nauseated, she said,
adding that many days she felt she could barely get out of bed.
In one of her regular visits to Balboa, doctors told her she
would need to go on the Temporary Disability Retired List for five years. This
meant that she would have a “retired” identification card and would receive
only a monthly stipend, rather than full pay.
Suarez said she was angry and devastated.
“I joined at 17, and I thought the Marine Corps was going to
be my career. I never thought this would happen,” she said. “I was angry at
God. My favorite phrase was, ‘Why me? Why is this happening to me?’”
She eventually began seeing a counselor who helped her deal
with her emotions.
Medical Retirement, Return to Virginia
On June 1, 2007, Suarez was medically retired. Later in
June, the family moved back to Virginia, because her husband had been
transferred there. Over the next few years, Suarez received an MRI every three
months. The tumor had shrunk even more due to the radiation and chemotherapy,
and while it was still there, it was at least stable.
Suarez said she started giving money to St. Jude’s
Children’s Research Hospital, because she had survived, and she regularly saw
young children at the two hospitals she went to who were very sick. The
situation made her think of her own child, she added, and she prayed for them
all.
Suarez was pregnant with her second child when her husband
walked out one day, saying he just could not deal with it all any more. She
moved back home with her parents for a while, and then eventually into her own
house in Lorton, Virginia. She also started working part-time at a bridal shop
to supplement her retirement pay.
Stable, Healthy, Ready to Return
Toward the end of her five-year retirement, Suarez decided
she wanted to come back on active duty. Her tumor was still stable, she was
feeling healthy, and she missed the challenge of being a Marine, she said.
In March 2013, Suarez got her wish: she re-enlisted in
Frederick, Maryland. After several phone calls to her career monitor, she was
able to be assigned to The Basic School so she could stay in the area where her
family and support system were located. She was promoted to sergeant in January
2014.
Returning to active duty after all she had been through was
an easy decision, Suarez said.
“I know I wouldn’t be happy not wearing this uniform,” she
explained.
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