BREAST CANCER SURVIVOR DELIVERS HOPE

Marcia Wallace was in her 20s when she had her first breast cancer scare.

The lump turned out to be benign -- a fibrous tumor. When a doctor told her the tissue would be taken to the lab and tested and a mastectomy scheduled immediately if it were cancerous, she stood up to him.

"It was the first time in my life I defied authority," she said. "My sister took it to a lab in Des Moines in a Chinese food carton."

The scare "made me realize that I wanted to take responsibility for my health, that I wasn't just going to sit there and let somebody else take control."

She was in her 40s when her next scare came, but this time the news wasn't as good. The lump was cancerous.

Wallace had just gotten engaged to the man of her dreams.

"He asked me to marry him and three days later I was diagnosed with breast cancer," she said. "I can't begin to tell you the feeling, except for those of you who have already gotten the news."

That was in 1985. Now Wallace is using her experience as a breast cancer survivor to encourage women to take responsibility for their health and learn about breast cancer.

She spoke Wednesday night in Cape Girardeau in conjunction with Breast Cancer Awareness Month activities sponsored by the St. Francis Medical Center, Southeast Missouri Hospital, the American Cancer Society and the Missouri Department of Health.

"I can't believe that it's been 10 years ago this month that I became a breast cancer survivor, and it's just wonderful," she said.

Wallace is probably best known for her role as Carol, the mouthy receptionist on "The Bob Newhart Show," and is also known as the voice of Ms. Krabapple on "The Simpsons."

When she was initially diagnosed with cancer, her doctor recommended a full mastectomy -- surgical removal of the entire breast. Wallace opted instead for a lumpectomy, in which only the malignancy and surrounding tissue are removed.

"My first thought was, I'm going to die, because the only people I had known who had breast cancer had died," she said. "Those women are my heroes, those women who 20, 30, 40 years ago had breast cancer, and had no options, no choices, no support system. Nobody even talked about it. I'm sure it's not unlike having AIDS today."

Wallace educated herself about breast cancer "because I thought death can't be any worse than a constant fear of death," she said. "I want to see women participating heavily in these choices based on what's best for them, for their lifestyles and their families, not just handing the decision over to some doctor."

When women learn about available treatments, they become empowered, which "makes you feel less like a victim," she said. "Call me crazy, but I just wanted to keep my parts."

Wallace was lucky.

"I caught it early," she said, and "I never got sick and it never came back. It would make a lousy movie of the week."

After her surgery and accompanying radiation therapy, she and husband Dennis Hawley had "a wonderful time," she said. "Then real life happened."

Hawley was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died 2 1/2 years ago. He was 47.

"I went from being a cancer patient to being a cancer patient's advocate," Wallace said. During one doctor's visit, a doctor was "shaking his finger in my face and I grabbed it and said, 'call me when your wife is dying.'"

According to the American Cancer Society, one in nine American women, or 180,000 women this year, will develop breast cancer. About 46,000 women in the United States will die of breast cancer this year, second only to the number of women who will die of lung cancer.

Three simple steps can reduce those numbers, Wallace said: regular self-breast exams, professional breast exams and mammograms.

"You have to be ever vigilant, because if you're a woman and you're alive, you can get breast cancer," she said.