Meet Cara Molulon, aspiring physician, pancreatic tumor survivor, and fellow Irish
There’s a reason why we’re called the Fighting Irish
Meet Cara Molulon: a Ryan Wildcat, Cincinnati native, aspiring physician; and pancreatic tumor survivor.
When Cara started her first few weeks as an eighth grader, she had no idea that she would end up spending the year in the hospital. What began as minor abdominal pain turned out to be a grape-sized pseudopapillary tumor on the head of her pancreas.
To complicate matters, oncologists at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital discovered two other masses on her body: one on her lung and another on her thigh. The decision between surgically removing the pancreatic tumor or treating it with a combination of radiation and chemotherapy would depend on pathology from these other lumps. Since tissues from the lung surgery were benign, oncologists gave the go-ahead for pancreatic surgery.
In the winter, Cara finally underwent a Whipple procedure, during which surgeons took over 13 hours to restructure her entire digestive system.
After a successful surgery, the dedication and support Cara witnessed in the hospital inspired her passion for healthcare.
Preparing for college, she looked forward to pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor as a pre-medical student at the University of Notre Dame. However, as a freshman hundreds of miles from home, she discovered another mass, this time on her chest. The lump was first tested at Memorial Hospital of South Bend, one of the places where Cara works as a volunteer during the school year.
Her treatment ultimately required her to travel to Maryland and the mass was removed that winter, forcing her to miss half of her spring semester. It has been a long road, but now, most a year later, Cara and her doctors happily report clear scans.
Throughout her journey, Cara has received tremendous support from the Notre Dame community, including family, friends, her rectress, professors, and advocates throughout the university faculty.
Cara was treated in Spring of 2015 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland
Despite the challenges that Cara has faced, she remains astonishingly optimistic and hopeful for the future. In the face of hardship, she carries herself with grace, poise, and confidence as she faces the uncertain challenges that await her:
“You could say I’ve had a lot of close calls in my life,” Cara jokes. “I’ve been fortunate, and no matter how many years I spend studying math and science, I doubt I’ll ever be able to calculate exactly why that is.
“Still, I don’t think the circumstances I’ve been in were simple happenstance. No one can tell you what it looks like on the other side of your life’s personal bridges and hurdles, so you have to find out for yourself- even if that means falling down and twisting your ankles here or there. But you get better at trying out bravery, better at failing, and better at trying again.
“You learn to welcome the possibilities rather than running from them.”
Did you feel a sense of hope? What kept you going?
For me, there’s a huge difference between helplessness and hopelessness, and I had to accept that I was helpless against certain things in my life. I couldn’t control that I was sick. But I had a chance to look for hope, and if I could find hope, then maybe I wasn’t so helpless after all.
There’s something in this world stronger than everything I was going through, and I believe that’s God. So, if the big man upstairs was ultimately going to win out, what did I have to fear? It’s empowering to believe that your life can amount to something greater than yourself. Like Cicero said, “Not for ourselves alone are we born.” If you want, you can call it a coping mechanism against my own mortality or some other psychosocial, philosophical explanation, but if I could think of my illness as preparation for treating patients or curing diseases, I found that it was purposeful.
Yes, there were days when I wanted everything to be over. When I didn’t care to get out of bed in the morning and wanted to drop out of school for a year. But I got up, and on the days when I couldn’t do it myself, my parents would lift me up, later roommates and friends. With their love, I had the support to stand again, and I want to help others do the same. That’s what got me through.
I am here now because of other people’s compassion, and that’s something I cannot express enough gratitude for. Now it’s a matter of moving forward.
How has the experience impacted you to this day? Is this something you want to work with/do in the future?
These experiences were eye-opening. I became more aware of suffering in the world. When I had my Whipple, I couldn’t eat or drink anything for five days and I thought my lips were going to shrivel up and fall off. Meanwhile, there was a toddler in the room next door who’d spent the first three years of his life in the hospital battling cancer. You meet two or three other kids like that on one hospital floor and it really puts your own problems into perspective. It seems obvious now, but when you’re a middle schooler you’re not as cognisant of that.
Her favorite line from the Dooley Letter is: “But when the time comes like now, then the storm around me does not matter. The winds within me do not matter. Nothing human or earthly can touch me. A wilder storm of peace gathers in my heart. What seems unpossessable, I can possess. What seems unfathomable, I fathom. What is unutterable, I can utter. Because I can pray. I can communicate. How do people endure anything on earth if they cannot have God?”
I didn’t realize how amazing the Notre Dame mission was until I read the Dooley letter at the Grotto. Every time I am at the Grotto I read that letter, and remind myself that is why I am here: to continue the mission of people like him who had so much compassion for the world. I want to do so much more. I hope to become a pediatric surgeon and continue this mission for the rest of my life.
What would you say to readers who have lost someone due to cancer? And for people who know people who are fighting cancer?
I don’t think there is a perfect phrase to say to anyone who has lost someone they love. People will try to say so many comforting words, when really, what would be the most comforting in that situation are the words of that lost loved one.
In my own experience, it’s been good to hear someone say, “Even though I might not be able to imagine what you’re going through right now, I am going to be here while you go through it. I am here for you.”
That is what I would say to anyone who’s struggling, first and foremost, to remind them that they don’t have to carry their struggles alone. You can never put on the same shoes as someone else, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us get to be passive bystanders. If you want to help someone face a challenge, whatever it may be, put on your own shoes and walk with that that person.
Cara is a part of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Fighting Together, and a strong advocate for funding pancreatic research. She is currently a sophomore and serves on the board of the American Medical Women’s Association at the University of Notre Dame.