Planting Resilience: Kaci Popp’s Cancer Journey Rooted in Family

Sep 16, 2024

Read Time: 7 minutes

Kaci Popp walking with her family down a dirt road next to a field

“Farming families stick together. We always have. And that is what I love about Huntsman Cancer Institute. That communal care you receive. Everyone pitches in.”

Farming is a demanding and challenging profession that requires hard work and dedication. Farmers must be able to persevere through difficult times and adapt to changing conditions and new technologies.

“Having cancer is like farming because you don’t have any control over it,” says Kaci Popp, a young mother of two boys living in rural Montana. “So many things can go wrong. You do a lot of praying: ‘If not this year, maybe next season will be better.’ This whole journey has helped me embrace patience as a virtue.”

Kaci’s journey started in February 2023 when she lost vision in her left eye while driving. “I thought I was having a stroke.” Within five hours, her vision returned. She had no other symptoms and after an MRI, she was diagnosed with atypical migraines.

Two weeks later, she noticed a lymph node behind her ear was swollen. After it grew a little, Kaci’s primary care doctor put her on antibiotics. “I was more tired than usual—at least more than I thought I should have been. Initially, I thought it was my thyroid, but all my tests were normal.”

“I kept saying over and over to myself, ‘Please Lord, silence my mind and open my heart. Open my heart to this journey before me.’”

Kaci expected fatigue because she also happened to be pregnant with her third child. Yet when the lymph node became hard, she had an ultrasound that showed a mass on her thyroid. A biopsy confirmed abnormal cells that were malignant. “It had wrapped itself completely around my internal jugular and created a clot. I went into the weekend knowing I had cancer, but nothing else. I was trying to remain as patient as possible and remember how I feel when we are farming.”

After the biopsy, Kaci had a neck scan that showed masses on her thyroid and chest, reducing her oxygen levels by taking up a third of her lung space. “I flew to Salt Lake City that day.”

During this time, Kaci leaned on her family and community. Her husband flew with her while her mom and dad, who live down the road from her in Park City, Montana, watched over their two young boys. A town that originated as a stagecoach station remains tightly knit, but also far away from the cancer care Kaci needed.

Kaci arrived at the University of Utah Hospital Labor and Delivery Unit on March 4 and stayed one week. “I was having waves of emotions. We knew we were in the right place though. We had just received a DoorDash order when they told us they needed to induce me.” On March 11, Kaci’s daughter, Allison, came into the world.

“I was having waves of emotions. We knew we were in the right place though.”

Kaci Popp holder her newborn baby, Allison

Kaci Popp learning against her husband and smiling at the camera

“Everything we needed, we got. I feel that Huntsman Cancer Institute treated my whole family.”

Two days later, Kaci moved to Huntsman Cancer Institute, still unaware of what type of cancer she had. “I had so much neck pain and couldn’t sleep, but as soon as I had Allison, the symptoms went away, and I got a good night’s sleep. A couple of days later, my tests weren’t great. There was no conclusion on what type of cancer I had after five neck biopsies. At that point, they were waiting on genetic testing to come back, but the tumors kept growing, so I started an aggressive chemotherapy regiment, with the hope of slowing down growth.”

On March 15, the masses had become so aggressive that doctors decided to take the entire lymph node, sending Kaci back into surgery. “The mass was so big that the cardiothoracic surgeon would not clear me for intubation. I was consciously sedated during the operation. The lymph nodes had kind of gelled together, so they took the whole cluster.”

The official diagnosis was poorly differentiated papillary thyroid cancer (PDTC). “I was told it was incurable. I was an emotional wreck. Every time someone came to the door, I wanted to cry. I could not have quiet. I had to sleep with the television on. I had to get past that. I have a type A personality—things were out of my control—so I had to get that support from others.”

That support Kaci needed? It was everywhere. “Everything we needed, we got. I feel that Huntsman Cancer Institute treated my whole family. Looking back, everything happened so fast. In less than three weeks, I’d had biopsies, scans, tests, and given birth.”

Another worry of Kaci’s was that of being a good mother. “I kept thinking, ‘How can I be a mom? Will this cancer take me away from them?’ [Two of] my kids weren’t around, and I struggled. But the care team had me FaceTime them. I didn’t know how I was going to tell them about my cancer but one of the specialists, Tara, gave me some books about how to talk to young kids about it. The people here really collaborated with me on my mental health. They said, ‘You have the chance to be here today and that’s all you can focus on.’ I kept saying over and over to myself, ‘Please Lord, silence my mind and open my heart. Open my heart to this journey before me.’”

“I kept thinking, ‘How can I be a mom? Will this cancer take me away from them?”

“Now, whenever I have negative thoughts, I put them on a piece of paper or a sticky note and crumple it up.”

Soon, Kaci’s perseverance would start to pay off. On April 7, genetic testing came back with a gene that could be targeted by medication. On April 10, Kaci and her baby Allison were discharged and went back to Montana. By June, her tumors had decreased in size. “My thyroid tumor was completely gone by August. The mass in my chest had decreased from the size of a softball to that of a ping-pong ball and I wasn’t having any side effects from the medication.”

Kaci is currently on Alecensa, a she takes twice a day orally. “This is the best I’ve felt since 2020,” she says.

When Kaci returned to Montana, she wasn’t ready to go back to work after the toll of the previous two months. “I always wanted to start my own wellness center, so I quit my job as a nurse practitioner and started that. I wanted a better work-life balance. I rearranged my priorities so I can walk my kids to school or take them to work. The integrated approach at Huntsman Cancer Institute made me realize I can help in so many ways.”

Kaci talks about the positives she takes with her every day. “In the hospital, walking from the NICU to the cancer hospital was an accomplishment. One of my doctors advised I journal. I was resistant because I didn’t want to recreate my thoughts. But now, whenever I have negative thoughts, I put them on a piece of paper or a sticky note and crumple it up.”

“I always wanted to start my own wellness center, so I quit my job as a nurse practitioner and started that…The integrated approach at Huntsman Cancer Institute made me realize I can help in so many ways.”

The time spent at Huntsman Cancer Institute helped Kaci find an inner strength she didn’t know she had. Her center, Mokara Wellness, named after the orchid and meaning “army of support,” is flourishing and Kaci was named in , celebrating her community’s best and brightest people.

Kaci is home now. As she prepares to go harvest corn late on a Friday afternoon, with the summer days getting shorter and the air getting colder, she finishes by talking about family. “Farming families stick together. We always have. And that is what I love about Huntsman Cancer Institute. That communal care you receive. Everyone pitches in.”

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