Collin County Living Well Magazine Winter 2015 | Page 42

Tiger Stripes and
Super Heroes
By Tina Withrow

T

he first thing that you notice about Sorrel Schmidt is
her Audrey Hepburn like beauty. I think it might just
be her eyes. They are kind. Her name comes from
the reddish brown color of a horse, sorrel brown.
You know immediately that she is a kind soul, and
we could all use a little more kind souls in this world.
We both share a love of cancer survivors and their families,
but I never knew just how personal her cancer story was.
It was during her time at x-ray school that she felt the odd
lump around her throat area. While the four biopsies came
back negative, she could tell that this oddity was growing. Pressing on, she prepared for surgery and graduation. Surgery revealed thyroid cancer. While doing her xray training she became intrigued by the radiation therapy
department. They had Polaroid pictures of each patient so
you could see the faces of the cancer survivors. Looking at
the pictures, you knew something immediately about that
person and there seemed to be a personal connection with
each patient and their radiation therapist.
She was hooked. Now, all she needed to do was to apply
to radiation therapy school. She applied and the professor called her to tell her she had been denied due to a full
class. After total shock settled in, she got really angry and
decided to personally call the professor and let him know
that it didn’t ma \