Relay for Life honorary chairwoman named

Julie Hodges and her husband, Kevin, were among the cancer survivors and their guests honored recently at the annual River Valley Relay for Life survivor banquet.
Julie Hodges and her husband, Kevin, were among the cancer survivors and their guests honored recently at the annual River Valley Relay for Life survivor banquet.

RUSSELLVILLE — Julie Hodges of Russellville, who faced two separate diagnoses of cancer in a span of 15 months, has been named honorary chairwoman for the 2015 River Valley Relay for Life.

“It is such an honor to be chosen,” Hodges said. “I am so humbled to be part of something that touches so many people.”

Relay for Life is the signature fundraising event for the American Cancer Society, and Hodges will be introduced during the opening ceremony for the local event, set for 5-11 p.m. March 14 at Russellville High School’s Cyclone Stadium. She said she hopes that perhaps through her involvement with this year’s Relay, she can convey a sense of courage to others who are battling cancer.

“You know, a lot of people have said to me, ‘You are so courageous.’ And I am going, ‘I don’t see that.’ I don’t see it in myself. I don’t look in the mirror and say, ‘I am a courageous woman,’” Hodges said. “I don’t think that courage came from me. I think I have a bubble around me of courageousness. I think other people and their prayers and their thoughts and their thoughtfulness gave me that courage. It did not come from within me.”

Others, however, disagree.

“Every cancer patient demonstrates courage, whether they realize it at the time or not,” said Leigh Ann Veach, co-chairwoman of the 2015 River Valley Relay for Life.

“It takes courage the day those words, ‘You have cancer,’ are spoken, it takes courage to arrive at the treatment center doors ready to battle, and it takes courage after treatment to continue the fight against this horrible disease.”

Hodges fought the disease while continuing to work as much as possible at Atkins Middle School, where she teaches sixth-grade math and reading.

“After working with Julie for three years and watching her fight this disease, it defies anything I have witnessed and has been simply amazing,” said Darrell Webb, principal at the middle school.

“With her attitude, her desire, her courage and, last but certainly not least, her faith, she has been able to beat this thing when all odds were stacked against her,” Webb said.

“She is a tireless worker in the classroom, volunteering countless hours after school for the sake of her students. Julie is not worried about herself, but worried about how her students are going to make it the days she does have to be away from the classroom,” he said.

Hodges was actually at school when she learned of her first diagnosis of cancer.

It was Dec. 21, 2012, the last day she and her fellow teachers worked before the Christmas break. Only a few moments had passed after the final school bell of the day rang, and Hodges received a phone call. The test results she received confirmed other results following “a bad mammogram” from the month before.

Specifically, Hodges was told she had invasive ductile carcinoma of the right breast.

With some of her fellow teachers offering support, “we sat here and cried and cried and cried for about 30 minutes,” she said. Then Hodges went home to break the news to her husband, Kevin, “and then we made all these phone calls to family and friends.”

Following the Christmas break, Hodges and her doctor had devised a plan. She had a lumpectomy that determined the tumor was large enough to require four rounds of harsh chemotherapy, 18 rounds of Herceptin (an antibody administered intravenously) and 36 rounds of radiation.

She took her last treatment in February 2014. What followed, she said, “was a big celebration.

“In March I had a clear scan. I had a clear mammogram, and everything was good.”

In May, however, she noticed a sore on her right breast. She returned to her doctor, who hoped at the time the sore was a radiation burn. Instead, it was Paget disease of the breast.

“So I said, OK, we are doing a double mastectomy. And when they did the double mastectomy, they found another tumor of invasive ductile carcinoma.”

Hodges said that while other treatment options could have been considered instead of the double mastectomy, the new tumor would not have been discovered otherwise.

“That’s what was scary, because I had a mammogram that did not see the other tumor, and I had scans that did not see the other tumor.”

The treatment plan did not call for the harsh chemotherapy but did call for nine treatments of Herceptin. She finished those treatments in January, and her scan on Feb. 2 was completely clear. Her next visit to the doctor will come in three months.

During the entire ordeal, Hodges said, she has been overwhelmed by the support she has received from so many people.

“The school, No. 1, has been unbelievably supportive. To start with, my principal checked on me every day. Every day when I had a treatment, he would check with her fellow teachers, asking them, ‘Has she called yet? Has she texted yet?’ It was always about me; it was never about the school,” she said.

“My fellow sixth-grade teachers were always asking, ‘What can we do to help you?’ And the extended school system sent emails, wrote letters, offered to make food,” Hodges said.

The support was also evident from students, as well as school personnel, who combined to form a Relay for Life team, named Hodges’ Heroes, that raised $1,500.

In addition, students would give her notes of love and encouragement, and that love was also demonstrated by her students’ parents.

“I would see parents at a ballgame, and they would give me a hug, or they would give me a hug in the supermarket,” she said.

“You don’t realize that people care, until they do. You know they are there, but then you wake up one morning, you get up and you say, ‘OK, can I make it today?’ Then all of a sudden you have this burst of energy because you know you have all those people out there thinking and praying for you, and that is what gives you the strength to make it that day.

“That extended, of course, to my church family. In fact, I sat down and counted one time, and I was on over 150 prayer chains, all over the country. And that was just the ones I knew about. So when I think about all those people praying for me, I’m thinking, ‘Well I can’t let all those people down.’”

Hodges considers herself blessed to have had all that support, and she said she cannot imagine how people cope with cancer who do not have that kind of support.

“Let me tell you, if you want to consider yourself the luckiest person in the world, go and sit in a chemo room. I was there as a patient, and I felt lucky because of the other people I watched. I watched people who were there alone. There were people there for six- and eight-hour treatments, and they were there alone. You hear their stories and learn some of them had no insurance and learn of all their struggles,” Hodges recalled.

“First there is the physical struggle; then you’ve got their emotional struggles, and then you’ve got their financial struggles. And the physical struggle is enough to put anybody under, and then when you add those other struggles … I don’t know how someone does it.

“I will tell you this. I have cancer, but cancer does not have me. It never had me. I have a husband who loves me, and I love him. I was going to beat this for him. I have three sons, and I want to see my grandchildren one day.”

In addition to all of Hodges’ friends, church family and extended family, there are others to consider as well.

“I have kids to teach. I have thousands of kids that I am going to teach. That was why I knew this battle was not going to defeat me,” she said.

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