A year of cancer and faith

Seventeen years ago this month, Elmont resident Carrol Bennett received a phone call that changed her life forever. A friend, Veronica Joseph, was babysitting the younger of her two daughters, 4-year-old Tracy, and noticed something strange about the precocious toddler. There was a bulge in her jaw, near her right ear.

Bennett was surprised — she hadn’t noticed anything earlier in the day when she dropped Tracy off. She immediately left work and took her daughter to the pediatrician. He couldn’t diagnose the growth, so he recommended a specialist. The specialist was stumped as well.

Bennett next met with an oral surgeon, Dr. Harry Sacks. “He looked at me and he said, ‘I’m going to tell you something, I have no idea what this is,’” she recalled. “‘But I guarantee that I’m going to find out what it is, and I’m going to cure her.’”

Sacks sent her to see Dr. Wolk, a head-and-neck specialist. “He said if anyone can find out what it is, it’s him,” Bennett said.

A biopsy did not find anything conclusive. Wolk did more tests, and eventually tried a more invasive procedure, and was able to access the infected cells. He told Carrol over the phone that Tracy had a malignant tumor. She had cancer.

“I said ‘What do you mean by malignant?’” Carrol said. “I was in shock. I got up from my desk and went up to my boss and said, ‘I have to leave.’”

Carrol left work — she is a finance manager for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — and drove back to Long Island. The matter-of-fact tone with which Wolk had told her of her daughter’s affliction stuck with her. It made her angry.

“I was angry that he was telling me something that I didn’t want to hear,” she said. “I was very angry at him, and I shouldn’t have been, because he finally found out what it was …”

Treating the illness

Now with a clear diagnosis, Carrol was able to get Tracy treatment. She was referred to an oncologist, Dr. Gungor Karayalcin, who confirmed the cancer. Carrol was instructed on how the treatment would progress and the likelihood of her daughter’s survival.

“At that point the tears were running down my eyes and he called me out of the office,” she recounted. “He said, ‘I’m going to tell you one thing you’re going to do for me. You never cry in front of [Tracy] — never. Never let me see you cry in front of Tracy.’”