Maeghan Arnold, a former oncology nurse who administered chemotherapy at CARTI, Arkansas' largest nonprofit cancer treatment provider, is a keynote speaker at Tux 'n Trees, the signature gala of CARTI's four-day fundraiser, Festival of Trees.
She is also a current CARTI patient.
In August 2013, Arnold, then 26, gasped as she toweled dry after a shower. Her underarm had been tender for weeks, but this searing pain was new. She probed the area with her fingers and found a lump, which she assumed was an inflamed lymph node. The next day at her annual gynecologist appointment, she alerted a nurse. Both women assumed it was harmless. Arnold had never had anything more serious than strep throat.
But to be safe, the nurse scheduled an ultrasound. When Arnold saw the image, she knew.
"It looked like a comet with two tails. And they always say, cancer, anything with irregular borders is not good," Arnold says.
But she was strangely calm. "I texted all my oncology friends, 'Look, I think I have cancer,' and they were like, 'No, you don't,'" she says.
Her radiologist wanted to do a biopsy the next day, but Arnold had class at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, where she was studying to become a nurse practitioner.
"They really don't like us to miss. Can I come on Monday?" she asked. Monday was four days away.
The radiologist said, "Can you come this afternoon?"
When Arnold got home, she found her husband of three months, an internist, crying in the study. He had already received a call from his radiologist colleague.
"'He said it doesn't look good,'" James Arnold told his wife.
But on the drive, Arnold had given herself a stern admonition: "I know I have cancer. I'm just going to take care of it and get rid of it."
Arnold hugged her husband and told him things were fine. She reminded him that in her year at CARTI she'd seen a lot of people beat cancer, and most of them were older and in worse physical shape.
INDEPENDENT RADIATION
CARTI opened its first facility in 1976, nearly a decade after administrators from Little Rock hospitals met to discuss jointly establishing an independent radiation facility, since each hospital couldn't afford its own equipment.
Now CARTI offers a full range of treatments and serves 20,000 patients each year with facilities in a dozen cities across the state. CARTI staff take a comprehensive approach, offering counseling and patient and survivor retreats, as well as massage vouchers and gas cards (for patients who have to drive a long way) to help combat the stress and expense that come with a cancer diagnosis. The center also provides its own transportation, housing and financial assistance, if necessary.
"When I was in college, we had a lecture on oncology, and I thought that would be the saddest job ever. I thought it was all going to be about people getting bad diagnoses, and then they die," Arnold says. "But I got to see so many successes."
Arnold had stage 2B breast cancer, which, according to the National Cancer Institute, has a survival rate of about 90 percent. (That rate drops to 22 percent if the cancer isn't caught until stage 4.)
Her former CARTI patient Heather Owens was one of the first people Arnold called. Owens had been diagnosed with breast cancer at 28, and Arnold wanted to process the diagnosis with a peer.
Owens accompanied Arnold to her first chemo treatment, and two weeks in, when Arnold's long, glossy brown locks fell out in clumps, Owens went with Arnold to have her head shaved.
Arnold underwent five months of chemotherapy at CARTI.
"It wasn't like I ever had to dread a treatment. For me, it was going to hang out with my friends, and I just happened to be hooked up to a machine instead of changing the modes on them," she says.
In the past year, Arnold has also undergone a double mastectomy and reconstruction, a hysterectomy and, after chemo caused one of her tear ducts to become blocked, an eye surgery. She has one surgery left, to put the finishing touches on her reconstruction.
Despite all of this, Arnold considers cancer "the best thing that could have ever happened to me. As nurses, we're trained to empathize and put ourselves in the patients' shoes. It's hard to do whenever you've not been sick."
Arnold has been in remission since February. Next month, she will take her last dose of maintenance medication, just to make sure no malignancies come back. She has returned to her UAMS program, and teaches nursing at Baptist Health Schools. After graduation, she hopes to again work with cancer patients.
no complaints
Arnold spent about a year preoccupied with treating her cancer, but she never quit doing the things she enjoys: yoga, nature trails, crocheting, shopping.
She describes her personal style as "eclectic, everything from French runway to Charming Charlie's," and plans to attend the Festival of Tree's fashion show, which features outfits from local boutiques and the chance to win a trip to New York's Fashion Week.
Her 5-year-old daughter and husband are excited about the Sugar Plum Ball, an evening of dining, dancing and Santa Claus, designed for little girls.
Festival of Trees also includes a casual holiday party called Festival After Dark, a Dodge Dart raffle and Stroll Through the Forest, with trees decorated in all manner of whimsy. All events will be held from Wednesday through Saturday at the Statehouse Convention Center, with prices ranging from $5 to $200. For more information, call (501) 660-7616 or go to www.carti.com/events/carti-auxiliary-festival-of-trees.
Arnold considers working at CARTI the best job she ever had. Now the organization means even more to her, because it helped save her life.
"I just feel like there's so much bad stuff in the world, so much poverty and war and disease and all of that. ... So whenever I see pictures of people who are really struggling, it makes me feel like I don't have anything to complain about. Yeah, I had cancer, but at least I have access to treatment," she says.
High Profile on 11/16/2014