THREE RIVERS AREA — Sometimes reporters don’t get to use all the information they have.
Because of space restrictions or the reality that good quotes aren’t pertinent to the story, we have to leave things out.
I wrote about three women for breast-cancer-awareness pages we ran in River Valley & Ozark Edition last week, and all three women were amazing.
I want to say thank you to Stephanie Hastings of Clinton, Kristin Hopgood of Russellville (whose stories ran a week ago today) and Joy Cox of Conway (whose story ran Thursday).
They didn’t hesitate to tell me the unvarnished truth about what they went through when they were diagnosed with a cancer that kills thousands of women - from joking about the size of breast implants they chose (for the ones who are going through reconstruction) to how the disease affected their marriages and friendships.
I was asked to keep their stories to 500 words each, which for me is almost impossible.
Stephanie and I hit it off from the first conversation. She’s the type of woman who has a million friends because she’s positive and upbeat. Stephanie’s mother has survived breast cancer twice, so Stephanie has been getting mammograms since she was 25.
She ran a hair salon, which she loved, until she had to close it to get treated for the cancer she found through a self-exam last year.
Stephanie said that, as a Christian, she has felt “a peace” through this ordeal.
After going to Texas for chemoevery week for eight months, she now goes only every three weeks. She joked that it’s “like a vacation - woo-hoo!”
When I wrote that, Stephanie was afraid she made it sound like she didn’t take the cancer seriously. Believe me, she does. That was her way of being positive - that instead of every week, gosh, she goes JUST every three weeks.
She’s also in a special control group trying Tibetan yoga for the positive effects that studies have shown it has on patients with breast cancer.
Her attitude is amazing.
Kristin was immediately open with me, too. One part of her story I didn’t tell was that the nurse who called and told her about her biopsy results said, “You’re in the clear - you’re fine.”
The doctor called back a little later that day to say he was so sorry but, no, it wasn’t clear- Kristin had cancer.
She got a second opinion and had a double mastectomy. She said although having cancer was devastating, it strengthened her marriage and her faith.
“I would not take the cancer back,” she said.
Joy Cox hadn’t had a mammogram in four years when she got the news she had breast cancer. If it had been a more aggressive kind, she might not have lived to tell me her story, or to play with her grandsons. Even though cancer was the scariest ordeal she’d ever been through, Joy said, she knew God would walk her family and her through it.
After talking to these women, I called and set up my mammogram. I haven’t had one in a couple of years.
I pray that I never get breast cancer, but if I do, I pray that I can handle it with the grace, humor and faith that these women have.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.
Three Rivers, Pages 125 on 10/23/2011