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Martin Truex Jr. tells story of Sherry Pollex’s cancer battle at Players’ Tribune

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Axalta 'We Paint Winners' 400

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400

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Just over a month ago Sherry Pollex, the long-time girlfriend of Sprint Cup driver Martin Truex Jr., celebrated the end of almost two years of precautionary chemotherapy for Stage III ovarian cancer.

Now Truex, about to start his third season with Furniture Row Racing, has shared his perspective on Pollex’s

journey in a blog for the Players’ Tribune.

Truex begins with the genesis of his relationship with Pollex, who he met 10 years ago at a race track and quickly began dating. They moved in together after just six months.

I must have done something right, because from then on, we were doing everything together. With Sherry, it was just easy. Being with her was one of those things where you were all-in right from the start. You never really questioned it, you never really thought about it. You just did it because it felt right. We’d only been out a few times, and I remember thinking, What the heck’s going on here? Why is she all I can think about?

Pollex’s cancer diagnosis came in August 2014 after months of mysterious pain in her abdomen. The chemotherapy Pollex would finish in January 2016 began to take a toll.

No one can prepare you for chemotherapy or what it does to your body. Watching Sherry go through the grueling eight-hour chemotherapy sessions every couple of weeks for six months was almost unbearable. She lost her hair and lost 27 pounds from her healthy weight of 120 pounds. She could barely walk from the living room to the kitchen in our home. It was one of the darkest times in our lives. Sherry opted to do additional chemotherapy, once a month for a year, to prevent the cancer from returning. Ovarian cancer tends to respond well to chemotherapy initially, but it can return within a two-year time period. Her disease also has an 80-percent recurrence rate when diagnosed at Stage 3.

Even before her diagnosis, the couple had done work in the cancer community with the Martin Truex Jr. Foundation. The foundation had primarily focused on research and support of pediatric cancer. Now it has rebranded to also fight ovarian cancer.

When you first meet with these families, you’re sympathetic to what they’re going through, but you don’t really understand. But once it happens to you or your loved one — and you never think it will — there are no words to describe the heartache and fear that comes with the diagnosis.

Read the rest of Truex’s story at the Players’ Tribune.

Follow @DanielMcFadin