'I'm just grateful:' Molly Oldham beats brain cancer twice, focuses on musical theater goals

More than two years into her cancer journey, Molly Oldham of Bath has a lot to be thankful for: namely being cancer-free.

The 20-year-old musical theater student, who has faced cancerous brain tumors twice, was given a clean bill of health in early October at Duke University Hospital, more than eight months after a second neurosurgery to remove two grape-size tumors.

Oldham receives scans at Duke every three months after going through her last surgery, as well as 2½ weeks of aggressive radiation and eight weeks of immunotherapy chemotherapy.

Oldham, a junior at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, was nervous about hearing her scan results Oct. 7. The results of this scan would determine if she was going to be able to stay in school.

She had missed her first semester of freshman year in college after having surgery at Akron Children's Hospital in 2019 to remove a tennis-ball-size tumor, followed by radiation. And her sophomore year had been interrupted in second semester by the bad news that her cancer had returned in January 2021, 17 months after her initial diagnosis of the rare Stage 3 anaplastic ependymoma.

"I was really anxious, as I normally am," Oldham said by phone from school Nov. 5. "I was just starting to get used to being a college kid, getting in the swing of things.

"It's just hard to prepare yourself for something that life-changing," she said. "If I was cancer-free, I had already been told that once, and then it turned out not to be true."

Oldham was cancer-free for six months beginning in June 2020, but her Akron oncologist said doctors were watching some spots in her brain and were hopeful they weren't tumors. By January, the cancer had returned.

At Duke on Oct. 7, Oldham's favorite nurse, David Duckett, sat with her for moral support on his day off, holding her hand as she awaited her scan results. She remembers her oncologist, Dr. Daniel Landi, telling her, "Well, Molly, it's good news."

He saw no evidence of disease and no tumors. The large cavity in her brain that had been left from her first tennis-ball-size tumor also had shrunk into a smaller hole, or tumor bed.

"Does this mean she's cancer-free?" Oldham's mom, Bunny, asked.

"Yes, it does," the doctor responded.

Upon hearing the good news, Oldham promptly fell asleep for an hour.

"I was just like overcome with such relief and I just literally exhaled and I was like, 'OK, I need a nap,' " she said.

"It's still hard to be hearing the words 'cancer-free' and really believe it because it's already happened once to me," Oldham said of her January recurrence. "The reality of it all is it can come back and there's a high possibility it will."

Nevertheless, Oldham, a 2019 Revere High graduate, is choosing to be cautiously optimistic.

When she woke up from her nap that day, she, her mother and Duckett went to the hospital Starbucks to celebrate. Special nurses Grace Perry and Amanda Taylor also met them there.

Next, Oldham, her mom, and Duckett went to nearby Duke Gardens to shoot confetti.

"My mom is a crazy lady and she always has confetti in her car," Oldham said of the confetti cannons Bunny Oldham keeps in her trunk. "She's super optimistic and always ready for a good time."

Big choice

The month before Oldham's good news, she faced a difficult choice when she learned that her plans to attend the premiere of "Dear Evan Hansen" with actor Ben Platt on Sept. 24, a gift the star surprised her with in May on "The View," would conflict with dress rehearsals for her first musical ever at school.

More: Molly Oldham continues cancer recovery, spreads awareness as guest on 'The View'

Oldham had been waiting 2½ years to appear on the Taylor Theatre stage with her classmates. Her director supported her decision either way.

Oldham chose to forgo the once-in-a-lifetime Los Angeles opportunity. She felt she owed it to her castmates to honor her commitment to the show, a musical version of "As You Like It."

"That was a really hard decision for me," she said. "I felt like I was losing something great and gaining something beautiful in the process.

"It was the right choice," said Oldham, who played Miss Amiens, who sings a duet with Duke Senior.

Being in the show was a great, long-awaited experience, said Oldham, who has clung to music and performing as a big part of her healing. In turn, she's worked to give hope and support through her music to others.

"Music honestly saved my life in a lot of ways," she said. "Music brought me from this really, really dark hole that I was stuck in with my diagnosis and gave me some hope and gave me my inspiration to keep going."

Just a day after learning of her cancer-free status, Oldham was in Pittsburgh, helping to run a unified musical theater college audition weekend that her mother and a friend founded to get musical theater hopefuls in front of numerous schools at an inexpensive price.

There, Oldham wasn't a cancer patient. She was the young woman who made encouraging signs for auditioners and helped them through the process.

"You know, you're gonna land where you're supposed to be," she told them. "Who you are is good enough."

Struggles with seizures

Since surgery in January, Oldham has suffered a number of seizures. She has averaged about two grand mal seizures a month, which have landed her in the hospital every three or four months.

The last one happened in movement class Oct. 27. Oldham blacked out and was unable to speak through her seizure.

Oldham said she'd never had a big health scare in front of her classmates. But her fellow students and director, Dominick Amendum, acted quickly and EMS took Oldham to the nearby Greensboro hospital. Her mother jumped in the car and drove to Greensboro to join her in the middle of the night.

After a night in the ER, a neurologist cleared Oldham to be watched at home at her apartment. Bunny Oldham slept on the floor next to her daughter's bed to keep an eye on her.

"The seizure itself was bad. It's definitely exhausting on my body every time," said Oldham, who slept for 18 hours three days in a row afterward. "It's definitely a process to get back on my feet after a grand mal seizure."

Now, Oldham is focused on callbacks for her school's upcoming show, "SpongeBob the Musical."

"I'm super excited. It's a very fun, quirky, kind of wacky show," she said. "I'm definitely ready to kind of dive in and get to work and kind of prove myself and get back to being normal."

On Thursday, Oldham shared her inspiring story of survival and thankfulness at UNCG's JOY•FUL program, a lunchtime event that included a Thanksgiving meal and food drive.

"I'm just grateful to be where I'm at. I think that my life has been very unpredictable the last two years and I'm very grateful to be able to be at a place where there's some consistency," she said. "Now I think that really deep down, I do believe that I'm going to be OK."

Arts and food writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Molly Oldham gives thanks, looks to future after cancer-free diagnosis