Honored to be a survivor

Lindsay Sandham

Balboa Island residents know Sheri Drewry as the jovial personality

who lights up Wilma’s Patio, the charming family restaurant named for

her mother that’s been serving locals and tourists for 23 years.

The Newport Beach Restaurant Assn. knows Drewry as its vice

president, and now as this year’s honorary cancer survivor for the

association’s team in the upcoming Relay for Life, which will begin

at 6 p.m. Friday and last until 6 p.m. Saturday.

The 43-year-old Costa Mesa resident was diagnosed with breast

cancer in January 2004, after going in for her annual doctor’s

appointment and mammogram. She said she had a baseline mammogram when

she was much younger, which is how the doctor was able to find the

cancer in such an early stage. Had it not been for that baseline

exam, the technician who performed the mammogram would never have

found the tumor, Drewry said.

After multiple biopsies and a magnetic resonance imaging exam,

doctors found a second tumor.

“Then I started getting really scared,” she said.

Her oncologist, Neil Barth, told her about genomic testing,

approved by the Food and Drug Administration the same day she was

diagnosed -- that would allow doctors to find out everything about

her cancer, giving doctors the best options for treatment.

What they found was that, although her cancer was in stage 1, it

was a very aggressive form that has the ability to spread fairly

quickly. So they prescribed her eight rounds of high-dose

chemotherapy, on top of a procedure to remove the tumors.

Even with all the surgeries and treatments, Drewry never missed a

step. She never stopped looking after her home and her family, and

she missed just a few days of work. In fact, right after her second

round of chemotherapy, she went to check on her mother, Wilma

Staudinger of Newport Beach, who had had a stroke months earlier,

only to find that she had suffered a second stroke. She immediately

took her to the hospital, and then took full responsibility of the

family restaurant.

“When you are taking care of other people, you go into that mode,”

she said. “There were times when I was so exhausted, but I just kept

pushing through. In hindsight, I think that was the best thing for

me.”

She added that due to the welcoming family environment of Wilma’s

Patio -- between the staff and the customers -- she was fortunate to

have a lot of people going through it with her, including her

husband, David, and her daughter, Leslie, who is now 13.

“That is really helpful -- the constant deluge of calls and

flowers and gifts,” she said. “Positive energy is really huge.”

Drewry had her first clean six-month checkup April 12.

Even though she was not able to attend meetings for the Newport

Beach Restaurant Assn. for nearly a year, they welcomed her back with

open arms and elected her vice president.

Drewry said it’s an honor to participate in the relay, especially

as the association’s honorary survivor.