Marie's Story from Tennessee

My name is Marie, and I am a breast cancer survivor. I was diagnosed in Oct. 2005. My doctor would always schedule my appointments later every year. In 2003, I had a mammogram. They thought they saw something in my right breast, but I knew it wasn't because I had hurting in the left, nothing was wrong with the right.

The next year they thought they saw something in the left and then they said it was just folded tissue. The next year they thought they saw something in the left and they said it was a cyst. I thought they were going to remove it but they said it was benign so it was okay.

I had an ultrasound and a mammogram. When he did the ultrasound I could feel it myself. It began to hurt and get bigger and I wanted to get checked early because I was about to lose my insurance, but my doctor would not see me. Then I went to the health fair here in the city and had a breast exam.

The practitioner who saw me said I should be tested again. She asked the nurse if they would schedule an appointment for me. They told me to go back to my doctor and see if he would schedule me an appointment. If he wasn’t able to, I could come to their clinic because they would be giving free ones in October.

This was all in Sept. 2005. I called my doctor and told him that the lump was bigger and it hurt. So he did schedule for the test. This time they told me it had changed and had turned to something different. They took me to a private room and I waited for the radiologist.

By this time I knew something was wrong, but I was not going to give in to it. They explained that I needed a surgical consult. They called my doctor and told him to schedule an appointment for me with a surgeon. I went to the surgeon on October. 12, 2005. He did a biopsy and he said right off that from the film it didn't look good.

He told me to call back on the 17th, even though he would not be there. He told me to talk to another doctor depending on the outcome. On October 17, I had an appointment for my pap smear. I was waited for a call back.

Just as I walked out into the parking lot, I received the call and they told me then I had cancer. My doctor asked if the doctor I saw told me to call him back and I told him no, he just said I might have to talk with someone else.

They scheduled an appointment for me to come back on October 26. When I went back the doctor I saw first, he wanted to schedule surgery for the next week. When I told him I want a second opinion he became very upset and rude.

I had already scheduled another appointment for the next week. So I was going to get the second opinion and with him being upset he left the room. My co-worker across the hall from me told me about the West Clinic in Memphis. He told me it was hard to get an appointment because they were affiliated with MD Anderson in Texas. I called and I got an appointment for the next week.

When I went to the appointment, the doctor was trained at MD Anderson. She scheduled a treatment for me so I would not have to loose my breast. She told me I had an angry tumor and it was growing very fast. It was about 2cm and 0.1 -2 in but by the time I had gotten there she said it was about 4cm the size of a Reese’s peanut butter cup.

She scheduled two rounds with a total of eight treatments. The first dose, I felt the medicine go across the tumor and when I went back for an exam the tumor had shrunk in half. When I had the test done to see where the cancer was located it showed up in my left breast and my lymph node. By the time I had gotten to the second round and the third dose of this round which was seven doses. The tumor was down to the size of a dime.

Before I had the eighth and final round, the tumor was too small to find. The surgeon and the oncologist were amazed. My surgeon was really amazed at how I had responded to the treatment. She had to schedule test to find out where to do the surgery. When it came time to do the surgery, I had the mammogram done here at the clinic in Jackson, so the films could go to Memphis.

They also did other pictures before the surgery the same day. The pictures did not match the film that were sent from here. Then we found out that the clinic sent the wrong film. They sent film of another woman who had more serious problems then I did.

I was truly blessed, that this was caught in time. When I had my surgery, my nodes were tested and they were negative. It had left the nodes. The tumor was as small as a pea it was 9mm. I was blessed with God's Favor.

After chemo, surgery then 33 radiation treatments another hard task, because I was burned severely, but was blessed to still have my breast. I lost my hair. During all of this I was still able to work. My co-workers thought I was amazing.

I needed to miss the week of treatment but was there after. I share my testimony all the time, because it is meant to help someone. You can't have a testimony without the test and God will not put us through more than we can bear.

We have to “Pay It Forward.” He healed me now I have to heal someone one else. You have to keep the faith and stay in good spirit and keep your mind on the Lord. It is hard, but never let anyone see your pain.

My 14-year-old son was my caregiver throughout my treatment. He is an honor roll student and was there by my side the whole time. He never slacked in school. He is now in the 10th grade and is still honor roll. I am very proud of him. I nominated him as my caregiver at a cancer party and he won first place. He also went with me to have me surgery. He is a very smart and intelligent child.

Jackson, Tennessee