Survivor shares ‘message from mess’

Myra Bass was diagnosed in November of 2016 with breast cancer, right before Thanksgiving.
Accompanying her to the appointment with her doctor, to hear the results of a biopsy taken following the discovery of something “suspicious” in a routine mammogram, was her husband of 35 years, Rodney.

At that moment, she recalls, if felt as if her heart had stopped. Instinctively, she looked over at Rodney, who had dropped his head.

“From the beginning, Rodney has been right beside me. He has not allowed me to have a pity party,” Myra said, in a recent interview.

Rodney was no stranger to cancer, as a number of his family members had suffered and died from it. At the age of 11, he had watched his grandfather succumb to lung cancer. His brother died in 2008 after a nine year battle with esophageal cancer. His sister suffered with lung cancer. Rodney was 35 when his mother was diagnosed with, and ultimately died from colon cancer in 2008.

“People don’t like to talk about it (cancer). It’s always going to be tough. But it doesn’t have to be a death sentence. I knew I was going to force her to fight. Pity is the enemy. I told her I could not tell her how it feels to have cancer in your body. But I knew I had to do my job, to be there for her and help her,” Rodney said.

His mother died on his wife’s birthday. His mother’s birthday happened to be on the same day as his wife’s final round of chemotherapy.

According to Myra, while Rodney has been her rock, he has also been able to provide much needed relief with his humor, as have other members of her family.

During one exceptionally difficult day, early on following the diagnosis, Myra remembered they embraced, and each shed tears.

She said, as most mothers would, her thoughts turned to her children, and she asked her husband, in the event that she did not survive the battle, that he would promise to take care of her children. She said there was a brief pause, and he asked, “Myra, do you know how old your children are right now?”

“Then we both started laughing because at the time, they were 38, 36 and 34,” she said.

The diagnosis was Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, the most common type of breast cancer.

“We got you early. That’s what my doctor told me. It was a good prognosis,” Myra said, adding that the tiny, 7 milimeter spot detected on her mammogram, something she has done annually for 20 years, would most likely not been discovered by self examinations alone.

Throughout her journey battling the disease, she has kept a journal, and throughout the interview, she referred to entries in it which reflected the emotional and physical roller-coaster experienced beginning with that November day until she completed her final round of chemotherapy.

In a whirlwind of appointments scheduled with doctors and a surgeon, Myra considered her options, which included a lumpectomy, which in her case would have necessitated in chemo as well as radiation, or a mastectomy. Once again she looked to her husband as she prayerfully searched for an answer.

“He told me it would be my decision. I asked him and that is what he said. In December of 2016, just a few days before Christmas, Dec. 21, I went in for a mastectomy. As always, Rodney was right there. And so was my daughter. She came in from Louisville,” Myra said.

Prior to the surgery, one of many decisions to be made, was when to tell their three grown children, as well as Myra’s 82 year-old mother.

“I didn’t want to tell them at first. But Rodney said that would just not be fair. And my mother is such a prayerful lady. I knew she would pray for me, and she did,” Myra said.

She credits the prayers of many, from family and friends, to her church family at Brown’s Chapel African American Episcopal Church in Union City, Tenn., as the reason for her source of strength, as well as a number of times when she avoided the side effects of chemotherapy which are experienced by so many.

“I knew God can work through man. I also new, and tried to remember that no matter where I go, God is there,” she said.

Her surgical procedure was performed at Baptist Hospital in Union City, Tenn., a facility which she praises as being “so caring and prayerful.”

But as with any roller coaster ride, along with the highs, there were lows.

While the surgery revealed no evidence of cancer in her lymph nodes, and that the disease was contained in one breast, she did have a reaction to the anesthesia. As she pointed out, she had never before been given anesthesia, with the exception of a mild dose for a dental procedure.

Her first round of chemotherapy she had “0” side effects. It was the same four her fourth and final rounds. But the second and third rounds, she developed severe nausea, itching and whelps over her body. Ultimately doctors were able to provide medications to help with those side effects but she also experienced, as a result of steroids required prior to each round, sleeplessness.

“She would be walking the halls at night,” Rodney said.

Myra said she would have the chemo treatments on Thursday, and on Friday and Saturday, she would deal with insomnia, however she also found the opportunity to tackle many household tasks in the wee hours of the morning, such as laundry and cleaning out closets. Then on Sunday, she would “crash”.

Another big challenge was having to go longer than ever before, to visit with her grandchildren.

“I was told I needed to stay away from any source of germs as much as possible, and you know how little children are. They carry a lot of germs. At church, when the time came where we would all usually hug, or shake hands, it came to the point that our church members would just ‘air hug’ me,” she said, demonstrating how they would extend their arms, as if in the act of hugging her, but not touch her.

When she completed the final chemotherapy treatment in March 2018, the couple planned a trip to California, a destination which had been on their minds since Rodney left there in 1981 while in military service.

“When I knew that I would lose my hair, that was hard to deal with. But I remember my son, Jason told me that ‘we don’t talk to your hair, we talk to you!’ I did shave my head when it started to fall out. I chose to wear a wig, but Rodney also ordered scarves and hats for me. When my doctor said I was able to travel and we went out to California, that is the first time I took off the wig I had been wearing. One of the ladies travelling with us thought that I had cut my hair the night before, when I showed up with the short hair, as it was just starting to grow back,” Myra said.

“Without God, we could not have made it through. I remember a Bible verse that stayed with me, Psalm 118....I will live and not die, and declare the works of the Lord. Another verse, I was given just before my surgery, Be still and know that I am God. Those mean so much to me. I believe I am supposed to take this mess, and make it into a message,” she added.

While Myra has been faithful for 20 years to have her mammogram on an annual basis, she is surprised by the number of women who don’t, especially in light of the increased awareness brought to the forefront, with the preventative procedure, and the success rate of complete recovery with early diagnosis.

“When I was working at Murray State University as a KTIP Educator for elementary, middle and high schools in our area of western Kentucky, I don’t know how many times I would talk to women, educated women, some even in the medical profession and they would not be getting a mammogram. I just could not understand it. I would tell them to get a mammogram. That is why my cancer was caught at stage one,” she said.