Vanessa Hill: “Faith in God will get you through.”

If there is one thing Vanessa Hill from South Fulton, Tennessee, knows a lot about, it’s cancer. As a registered nurse, mom of three, and current patient of Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, she has been on a journey with cancer on and off for more than 13 years. And even though cancer has become a huge part of her life, she is choosing to make the best of it, by having a positive attitude and continuing to focus on her family and faith.

“A lot of people [who have cancer] say, ‘Why me?,’ and they don’t understand why I am so positive,” Hill says. “But if you’re negative or you surround yourself with negative people, you’re going to feel worse, and the outcomes are worse, too. I choose to believe that anything bad in life can result in something good.”

Hill attributes adopting two children as a positive outcome of her cancer. Knowing her specific type of cancer was fed by hormones in her own body, she made a decision early on in her journey to not have any more biological children. According to Hill, her adopted children were the “blessing after the storm.”

It was a storm that hit around 2007, when she was first diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma, Stage 3B. At the time, her biological daughter was almost 4 years old, and Hill was just 27. It started with a lump she found in her left breast.

“I didn’t have any family history,” Hill says. “And while I tried to remember to do self-breast exams, I was busy with our daughter and home remodeling and just put it off.”

After she went to the doctor, she knew the cancer was serious. She underwent a bilateral mastectomy, followed by intense chemotherapy and radiation. Ten years later, the same cancer returned in her thoracic spine. That spot was treated, and yet another spot showed up in June 2019.

Because of her young age at diagnosis and the type and stage of her cancer, Hill will always be treated with immunotherapy and watched closely for reoccurrences throughout her body.

Which is why Hill is such a big advocate for knowing as much as you can about your diagnosis and treatment. She encourages others to ask questions, educate themselves and know the pros and cons of every decision they make. But ultimately, she wants other survivors to know it’s “faith in God that will get you through.”

Faith in God and a big support system that checks on each other, because the family of a person going through cancer needs support and encouragement, too. Everyone is affected — not just the patient — and finding a positive outlet is important for each person in the family. Knowing her battle with cancer is not quite over, Hill will continue to live her best life now, with God and family by her side.