Calendar offers hope through cancer survivor stories [Independent Tribune, Concord, N.C.]

Nov. 30--CONCORD, N.C. -- Fighting to stay alive brings out qualities of strength and resilience, and even though some will stumble or falter on the way their end result will inspire others to fight as hard.

Presbyterian Buddy Kemp Cancer Support Center has created "Stories of Survivorship 2012 Calendar" to honor several survivors.

Two of the survivors in the calendar are residents of Cabarrus County.

Ruth Reynolds, 58, and Mary Geneva Brackett, 31, have different stories to tell, but the part that inspiration has played in their cancer fight creates a common bond that most survivors share.

Brackett was a busy 28-year-old working for Wachovia. At the time the merger was happening between Wachovia and Wells Fargo, Brackett was worried about her job. When she found a lump in her breast, she ignored it at first.

"I thought, 'I'm 28; life is good, and I don't feel bad,'" she explained. "I was busy and couldn't be bothered, but I knew something was there."

In August 2009, after Brackett made it through the merger, she thought she'd celebrate with the breast enhancements.

The plastic surgeons in Charlotte felt the lump and began to ask questions and show concern. He wouldn't continue with the process unless she had a mammogram. He scheduled it for the next day, because he felt she would put it off.

"He said 'your life will get in the way of your health'," she said. "He saved my life."

The first few days after her diagnosis were tough, but Brackett chose to fight.

While going through the first series of tests, bone scans and MRIs, she was sitting in an insurance processors cubicle, and saw a paper attached to the wall about attitude.

"It said everything in life you cannot control. Ten percent of your life is what happens, and the other 90 percent is how you react," Brackett recalled. "I asked him for a copy and I put it up on my refrigerator."

On the hard days it helped her move forward.

"You have a choice, and you have a choice in how you respond to things," she said. "But with cancer there is no other option. You can't let it defeat you. You have to keep fighting."

Brackett focused immediately on helping others. In the month after her surgery, she raised $1,500 for cancer research. The easiest way for her to get through the tough times is to focus on something other than herself.

For Reynolds, it was ovarian cancer, found during a routine physical in 2009.

"Usually by the time ovarian cancer is caught, it is in the later stages. Usually stage three or four," Reynolds said. "It is very difficult to diagnose ovarian cancer."

She was faithful to screenings and exams over the years, but sometimes doing everything right doesn't keep the worse case scenario from happening,

"At first you feel like you are in a different universe, you are on a different plane from other people. You are in the cancer universe," she said.

She tolerated six months of chemotherapy treatments fairly well, and continued to work. She was clear of cancer for nine months before the cancer returned. She is still in treatment.

"Once you have recurrence of ovarian cancer, it is treated like a chronic disease," she said.

Reynolds is now on a clinical trial that uses a kidney cancer drug to fight the ovarian cancer.

"So far I am doing really well, and I haven't had any progression of the disease," she said.

Reynolds feels that it is an honor to be a part of the cancer survivor community. The year she was diagnosed she began to make earrings for the cancer center to be put on a Christmas tree.

"I've been doing it ever since to try to pay-it-forward," she explained.

"It does give people hope when you see some of the amazing things that survivors are doing, and how positive people are, and how much support you get from love ones and the community. This (the calendar) helps raise money and donations for the Buddy Kemp Support Center, which has been a life saver for me," she said.

Tiffany Young is a licensed clinical social worker and an oncology social worker at the Buddy Kemp Cancer Support Center. Her position as a counselor deals with the non-medical needs of someone diagnosed with cancer and their families.

"It is not about the medical tier, but those other things that people are impacted with when diagnosed with cancer," Young explained.

There is an increase in anxiety and depression that will usually follow a cancer patient in the initial diagnosis.

Anxiety comes from fear of death. Death is often the first place their minds will go, Young said. She helps them through the struggle by exposing them to the survivorships, and let them know there are people surviving and doing well beyond the diagnosis.

"Once they are able to interact and see people that are doing well it helps them to stay encouraged and inspired," she said.

The Buddy Kemp Cancer Support Center helps to redefine and recreate what their life will look like moving forward.

Those survivors who are featured in the calendar are nominated by peers and loved ones.

"I believe that people who go through their journey, and are focused on survivorship,and help others, when they are chosen for the calendar, realize the impact they have on the people who have supported them and cared for them through their treatment," Young said. "It touches them in a way words cannot."

Copies of the "Stories of Survivorship 2012 Calendar" can be requested at www.presbyterian.org/buddykemp.

Contact reporter Robin L. Gardner: 704-789-9140.

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