Breast cancer survivors support each other
By LYNDA STRINGER - Tribune City Editor
Saturday, October 4, 2008 3:25 PM CDT
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| Tandra Gibson, left, talks with and supports fellow breast cancer survivor Melba Henderson at the Paint the Town Pink survivor's celebration Wednesday. Gibson founded the Breast Friends and Bosom Buddies ministry to help women facing breast cancer. TRIBUNE photo by Lynda Stringer |
Tandra Gibson has always liked pink, but she never thought she'd gone down her own pink journey. "I am a grateful breast cancer survivor," she said Wednesday at the Paint the Town Pink kickoff and survivors' celebration. "Today marks two years, two months, two weeks, two days and about two hours since I started my breast cancer journey and I am just tickled pink to be here."
Gibson had a mastectomy in July 2006 in Dallas. That's when she was given a pink heart-shaped pillow to protect her wound after surgery.
The pillow that she calls her "bosom buddy" came to mind in late August while she was thinking about a woman she'd met at a local department store. She refers to her as "Sally" and said the woman had seen the pink breast cancer awareness pin she wears.
"This pink pin is like a magnet. It creates an instant bond," Gibson said.
The pink pin represented a lifeline for Sally, giving her the courage to reach out and share a burden that was on her heart. Both of her grandmothers had been diagnosed with breast cancer and she was increasingly worried about whether she was at risk.
Gibson asked her if she'd had a mammogram, but Sally said she hadn't because she had no insurance.
"I was wordless and I thought I've got to do something," she said.
She had heard about the Paint the Town Pink events being planned in Mount Pleasant and that the events would include free breast cancer screenings, so she went back to the store to tell Sally she could have the procedure done for free.
"Her eyes said it all. There was no more panic," Gibson said. "She didn't have those end-of-the-road eyes anymore."
That experience reminded her that there are so many other "Sallys" that are facing the gripping fear of a possible cancer diagnosis having no where to turn or no money or insurance to get treatment.
When Gibson read an article in Guidepost magazine she said she knew that God was calling her to be a "breast friend" to these women. The article said, "When God sees a problem he sends people on earth to fix it and what each of us needs to do is remember what we're here for."
That's when her ministry Breast Friends and Bosom Buddies was born. Her and an anonymous partner she calls "The Pillow Maker" bought the material and stuffing and started making heart-shaped pink pillows for breast cancer patients.
"God has sewn the desire in my heart to make these pillows to help people around here," she said. "It starts with one stitch, one person."
Thinking again back to Sally not having the money to have a mammogram, however, she realized her new ministry needed to provide financial help as well.
She teamed up with another breast cancer survivor, Peggy Helbert, a registered nurse and the education coordinator at Titus Regional Medical Center, to coordinate fundraising projects.
The women came up with the Daffodils of Hope and Pennies from Heaven campaigns. The ministry is selling daffodils for $5 each that will be planted at the Patty and Bo Pilgrim Cancer Center in a pattern so that when they bloom in the spring they will spell H-O-P-E.
The penny drive idea came to Gibson in the parking lot of Wal-Mart one day when she saw a shiny penny on the ground and, looking around, before long she had collected five unwanted cents.
"I thought, ‘People are just tossing these pennies right and left,'" Gibson said. "Nobody likes an insignificant penny, but we do. Sally's hope begins with that one penny that's under our feet."
The breast cancer statistics are alarming. The disease will affect one in eight women and Tandra Gibson said she never thought she'd be that one.
"That day I was there with all these other ladies sitting around in our white robes, one after one went in and out fast. There's was jut a normal checkup," she said. "But I was there minute after minute and I knew that I was that one in 8."
Peggy Helbert, who also serves as chairman of the Cancer Survivors Relay For Life, also recalls the feeling of dread, that this checkout will not be normal.
‘When I was told about having breast cancer I was a nurse for a few years in the emergency room and in the ER you didn't see good happy cancer patients. They didn't come in happy and smiling and say, ‘Hey I've got cancer.' We saw the end of life care. So, I'm diagnosed with cancer and that's all I could think about. ‘Oh, my gosh, this is what's going to happen to me," Helbert said.
Her journey began before Dr. Rosa Cuenca, a surgical oncologist and breast cancer specialist, came to TRMC and before the cancer center was built, so it required long grueling hours of travel to get treatment.
"I had to have 37 radiation treatments and had to go every day for that. You have time to think when you're traveling."
Friends and family drove her to Texarkana, sat with her, brought her meals, visited and called her every day.
"Now, here in our home there's a cancer center and nobody has to go very far," Helbert said. "Were here, we're a team and we're a community that's going to fight back."
Sheron Harvey knows too how things have changed for the better. It's been 20 years since had breast cancer. She had to have chemotherapy and a complete mastectomy. She also battled cervical cancer in her late 20s.
That long, painful journey has given her words of wisdom to share with other women facing an uphill battle with the disease.
"You have to have a lot of faith in the Lord to get you through it because there's a lot of rough times," she said quietly, the experience coming back in fresh waves of emotion. "The chemo that I took made you very sick I think now that they have improved and you don't get as sick. I didn't have to take radiation, but I was not given a choice of having a lumpectomy or a mastectomy. They said I had to have the mastectomy and I had two children at home. The Lord has really blessed me and brought me through some rough times."
Tandra Gibson is determined to help bring other women through those rough times, one daffodil and one penny one prayer pillow at a time.
"It takes just one willing heart to help," she said.
