Briana Daugherty was enjoying a normal freshman year at OU until she woke up one November morning that would change her college experience forever.
She found a bump under her arm the size of a marble.
Daugherty, now a sophomore, was enjoying her first semester of freshman year, making new friends, studying to be an air traffic controller and getting involved with various activities on campus when she was diagnosed with stage 3 lymphoma cancer.
However, many who know her have been inspired by her consistent positivity and determination to find the light in tough situations.
She was just starting to fully adjust to college life when she woke up that Tuesday morning in November with a strange bump under her arm. She then did the first thing anyone would do — she googled it.
“The first thing WebMD tells me is it's cancer, like everything. And so then I’m like, surely not. No, not me. Which I think is so funny now — the irony,” Daugherty said.
She drove home to Tulsa that weekend and went through a series of checkups, all of which the doctors told her was an infection from high stress and to not worry about it.
But the lump kept growing.
“It got to the size of like a small golf ball … It's just not comfortable and you're just confused … that should be not here,” Daugherty said.
After four months of frequent doctors appointments and a series of misdiagnoses, she received news the Monday of spring break that she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma stage 3A.
Ultimately, the news of stage 3 cancer is very daunting, but Hodgkin’s lymphoma has a 95 percent survival rate after five years, Daugherty said. Her nurses told her she “won the lottery of cancers.”
After her diagnosis, Daugherty went through chemotherapy treatments every two weeks for six months. Because it was the end of the school year, she continued with her school work and only dropped one class.
Although she was traveling between Houston and Tulsa for treatments, her school work, friends and life in Norman were a priority for her, said Orin Imtiaz, a finance and economics sophomore and a close friend of Daugherty.
“Whenever everyone found out she had cancer, I think everyone else was more freaked out than Bri was, and Bri just completely handled it with grace,” Imtiaz said. “Whenever someone gets that bad of news it’s really about how they look at it, and Bri didn’t let cancer stop her.”
Daugherty made sure that she was open about the process with her friends.
“Don't step on eggshells … This is me at 19,” Daugherty said. “There's nothing I can do about it, so let's just have fun with it.”
Her efforts did not go unnoticed, as Imtiaz expressed her appreciation for Daugherty’s openness.
“She made sure no one else felt uncomfortable by it, and put everyone else at ease even though inside she’s going through chemo and dealing with the ups and downs of cancer,” Imtiaz said. “She just talks about it casually, she talks about it like a chemistry class.”
Daugherty, who is a member of the President's Leadership Class, did not let her diagnosis hinder her from being an “outstanding” member in the organization, said Nanette Hathaway, director of PLC.
Daugherty was chosen among 12,000 applicants based on her leadership in high school, Hathaway said. Although she was going through treatments and could not always be at the meetings, she went “above and beyond” to attend every meeting that she could — all with a smile on her face, Hathaway said.
“Every year we have a PLC theme and last year’s theme was “rise”... and you know, Bri is just someone who exemplified that theme … You get knocked down, and the important thing is that you know how to rise, that’s what real leadership is,” Hathaway said. “We try to teach leadership in PLC, but sometimes the greatest lessons come from our students, and the stories they share.”
Through her positivity, Daugherty was honest about her struggles, and said that losing her hair was the hardest part of the process.
She cut her long, curly hair at the beginning of the process and donated 11 inches. However, she eventually shaved her head in May when her newly cut hair started to fall out.
“I shaved it, and it wasn't traumatic. It was actually kind of fun cause it was like, I'm never going to do this in my life,” Daugherty said. “Never would I ever be so bold as to shave my head.”
Shortly after, her hairdresser made a wig to match her old hairstyle of long brown, curly hair, which she loves. She frequently wears it with a hat, which she says looks just like real hair.
Bri says that everyone around her — nurses, doctors, parents, grandparents and friends — helped her stay positive.
“All my nurses were just awesome … they'd laugh at all my jokes,” Daugherty said. “Just having a good support system ... and just that nobody cried in front of me. Which is probably good because I didn't feel like crying, especially because as soon as we found out, they were like, "It's not going to kill you … don't go blow your life savings.'”
She also cites her faith in God as a big factor in her positivity.
“Knowing that it wasn't the end of the world per se … and my faith took me through that a lot … I felt like I can handle this … cause I'm not holding it on my own,” Daugherty said.
Although it was a long summer filled with chemo treatments, Daugherty decided last minute to return to OU in the fall. She enrolled a week before classes started.
“I was like, I have to go back … I'm going to go crazy sitting in this house all semester, especially if I start feeling better,” Daugherty said. “It was the right choice. 100 percent.”
Daugherty received news in September that she was finished with chemo, and her friends surprised her with a “no mo chemo” party, Imtiaz said. They surprised her when she returned from her appointment and hung out with her all day, ate food and celebrated the good news.
OU was very accommodating throughout the process, Daugherty said.
“OU was really good about that,” Daugherty said. “I didn't have any pushback from any teachers.”
When Daugherty showed up for her Severe and Unusual Weather final in the midst of her treatments, she was met with shock from her teachers.
“I turned in my final, I was one of the last people in the room. They were like, ‘We thought you weren't going to show up …' and I was like, ‘Well, yeah, it's finals. I said I would…' And they were just amazed ... They're just really awesome and accommodating,” Daugherty said.
Daugherty received the news on Oct. 20, 2018 that she is cancer free.
“We encourage our students to share their stories, and you know there are certain things in our life we can control and there are certain things we can’t,” Hathaway said. “One thing I think Bri really taught others is that, you know, you can control your attitude, and hers was one of always being positive … coming ready to learn and serve others, and I think that speaks a lot about her spirit.”
