For Beverly Wilson, surviving breast cancer wasn't her only battle. She also had to deal with her mother's diagnosis and treatment, almost a year to the day after her own.
"You just breathe in, like everyone else," Wilson says. "We had other plans, but with all of this, you just kind of have to take a breath and say, 'OK.'"
Wilson's diagnosis was different, by her own admission. She does a self exam regularly, she says, and has for several years.
During one self exam, she says, one side "just didn't feel right."
It wasn't a lump, but an elongated area on top of her left breast. She called and was scheduled for a mammogram that same day, she says, in early March of 2016. The results came back, and she had a lumpectomy on the first of April.
"They took out two lymph nodes, those came back clear, I had another mammogram in March, that came back clear," Wilson says.
She'll have to go back periodically for checkups, she says, with her surgeon and her oncologist.
"That's the way mine works," Wilson says.
Her mother's journey, she says, was just kind of odd.
Her mother will be 87 in November, she says, and her mother stopped driving not long after her last mammogram in 2015.
"I had never thought about her getting her mammogram," Wilson says, until she realized in 2017 that her mother hadn't had a mammogram in 2016.
"She did surgery and everything so much better than I did," Wilson says, laughing.
"I didn't have a lot of problems, but when you factor in her age, well," Wilson says.
Wilson says her grandmother had also had breast cancer, resulting in a double mastectomy.
It was a real concern to her to watch for the signs of breast cancer, she says.
"That's where we're at right now," she adds.
Wilson called herself a stresser, a worrywart, but as soon as she was diagnosed with breast cancer, knowing something was wrong, having an ultrasound and biopsies, "a peace came over me."
Wilson has been a Christian for many years, she says, and the Bible verse about peace being past all understanding came to her.
"The day of the surgery, my family couldn't come back because of the tests I was having run, but I didn't fret about them," Wilson says.
A lady from Pastoral Care came back and prayed with her before the surgery, Wilson says, and "I was at peace the whole time. I didn't want [medication] to knock me out, although right when they took me back, they gave me a little sedative. I helped them get me on the bed."
She pauses.
"It wasn't me. I know it wasn't me," she says. "The Lord has been with me through this."
Wilson says she called this a win-win situation. No matter how it shook out, she'd win if she was cancer free, and "if the Lord takes me home, I win," she says. "I have to have that mindset."
A breast cancer support group was immensely helpful to her, she says.
"People I know that have or had breast cancer, I always tell them, are you going to the support group, do you know about it? It is such a wonderful thing. You do get pampered. It was a good thing for me. It just blessed me and I want other people to be blessed like that," Wilson says.
Only five people are in her support group, she says, but even with that small number of people, "'Support' is not the right word. It's 'blessing.' You're not out there by yourself," Wilson says.
After the cancer battle, she says, there will be twinges, there will be pains, but it's not scary to her anymore. "I've been blessed, the Lord is blessing me," she says.
Wilson says at first, after she was diagnosed, it was hard to accept the reality of her breast cancer.
"My daughter brought me one of those pink rubber bracelets, and when she first brought it, I accepted it but I didn't want it. That made it real, and I didn't want to make everything real," Wilson says, but "it's just a growing thing, acceptance."
Wilson says she found a strength within herself.
"I know it comes with age," she says. "The Lord gave me peace and gave me that peace to share with others, and that's what I try to do."
Of her mother, Wilson says, "She did say something here a while back that does give a different light. Her thing was, 'Lord, let me live long enough to be able to enjoy my great-granddaughter.'"
They have a very special bond and relationship, Wilson says.
"But anyway, she's like, 'I think I got this so somebody else didn't.' That's a good way to think about it. Could've been a young mother. Gotta think of it that way. It's powerful."
mniederkorn@semissourian.com
(573) 388-3630
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