Grace Under Fire: Cancer Survivors Share the Beauty of Beating the Odds

“Do you want me to wear my wig?”

Lisa Tibbits, of Lansing, held up a head of dark blond cyberhair.

A breast cancer survivor, Tibbits’ hair was just starting to grow back at the time of our photo shoot. The short pixie cut she was sporting as her real hair grew back made her look strong and determined, and emphasized her bright eyes. She had only just started going out without her wig.

“It was the last thing left reminding me of the cancer. I just needed to get rid of it,” Tibbits said.

There were no photos with Tibbits wearing the wig that day.

A rocky journey

Tibbits first became aware of the mass in her breast after
a routine mammogram, when the doctor’s office called her back in for a second look. Though the fertility drugs she used to get pregnant with her 6-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter had put her at increased risk for breast cancer, Tibbits was sure it was an anomaly. “I thought, ‘I must have moved [in the machine].’” Her sister had been diagnosed with breast cancer earlier that year.

There was a second mammogram; then an ultrasound; then a biopsy. After the biopsy, Tibbits asked her surgeon, straight out, what she thought. The surgeon said that, given what she saw on the biopsy, even if the test came back negative, she would not believe it and recommend surgery anyway.

“Maybe I knew somehow. Part of me was shocked, but another part wasn’t,” Tibbits said.

Tibbits’ battle against breast cancer began with surgery to remove the mass and some lymph nodes, making her miss her first week back to work at Waverly High School, where she teaches special education. Though initial tests to check for the mass after the surgery came up clean, a followup visit revealed that the mass was much bigger than initially believed. A second surgery removed more of the mass and a string of lymph nodes.

After the second surgery, Tibbits’ battle continued with chemotherapy.

“It was the worst thing I’ve ever been through. It’s like someone pelted you with a ton of bricks,” Tibbits said. “If there had been a fire in the house, I wouldn’t have been able to leave. I absolutely could not get up [the week after a treatment].”

But Tibbits managed to stay healthy aside from the chemo and ran her life as normally as possible. She continued to work full time and spent as much time as she could with her two children.

The chemo eventually caused Tibbits’ hair to thin. She knew she needed to shave it off.

“That was the worst part of all of it,” she said. “But Another Look [Hair Institute] was awesome. They got me a wig that looked realistic and shaved my hair off for me and continued to give me treatments.”

Tibbits’ students were unaware of her hair loss. “[When I started wearing it] my students said, ‘oh, you got your hair cut.’”

She finished chemotherapy and began radiation just before Christmas. Though radiation did not take the physical toll that chemo had, getting to Ingham Regional Medical Center every day at the same time for 30 days was taxing.

Throughout her battle, Tibbits received massage therapy and lymphedema treatment to help ease the challenges of removing lymph nodes, or lymphedema. The removal of lymph nodes can cause swelling in the arm since the remaining nodes have a reduced ability to carry fluid from the area. Her weekly treatments helped improve circulation.

Tibbits considers herself fortunate to have caught the cancer so early: her mass was not detectable by touch, even when the ultrasound showed exactly where it should have been felt.

Now cancer-free and liberated from treatments, Tibbits still goes for mammograms every six months.

“You want to cry and panic [when you’re battling cancer],” said Tibbits. “I’ve always been a very strong and independent person. My mom taught me to be strong … Support from family and friends and work [helped me get through it].”

A “lucky” break

“I’m one of the luckiest women you’ll ever talk to,” said Ione (EYE-own) Berg, another breast cancer survivor.

Berg’s cancer was as small as a couple of grains of sand when it was discovered in her annual mammogram. It was removed in a needle biopsy.

“I went through the anguish when they said ‘You’ve got cancer,’ and couldn’t even say the word at first. But I feel so grateful,” Berg said.

Berg’s journey with breast cancer started long before she battled it herself. In 1991, she and a friend signed up for the three-day Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, just to have the experience.

“We gained so much from it, met so many amazing people. Women who had just went through chemo were there,” Berg said.

When she was diagnosed in 2001 at age 61, the friends Berg made through these walks became a critical support system for her. Being far from her family in Michigan, while she was in Atlanta, GA, was a challenge for her, Berg said. “I definitely had many friends to help me through it who filled the gap.”

Because the mass was so small, Berg did not go through chemotherapy or radiation — radiation can only be done once because of the damage it causes, so that was saved for another time in case Berg had a recurrence. Instead, she was put on Tamoxifen, a pill that reduced her chances of a recurrence, for five years. Berg was even fortunate enough to not suffer any of the potential side effects of the drug.

Now, Berg does all she can to keep herself healthy and pass on the good she has received. She eats healthy and walks four to five miles each day. And though she retired from her office management position in 1995, Berg stays busy with her multitude of volunteer positions, which includes the Mid-Michigan Food Bank, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, her grandchildren’s PTA, Capital Gardeners and the list goes on. She donates platelets at American Red Cross every two weeks to help others fighting cancer.

In Atlanta, Berg joined Dragon Boat Atlanta, a boating team of cancer survivors. Though Dragon Boat doesn’t have a Michigan team, Berg still competes with a Canada team just over the border once a year. Since her move to Lansing in 2005, Berg trains with the MSU Pink Ribbon Rowing Team.

“There’s no experience needed,” said Berg. “It’s just great coaches and women who didn’t feel sorry for themselves.”

A sneak attack

“I’d always been very good about getting mammograms, exercising, all the things they tell you to do and not to do,” said Sandra Johnson, vice president of investments at Stifel Nicolaus.

So when she investigated into some soreness around her breast she felt while throwing the football with her son, then nine, she was surprised to find a lump.

Her husband came with her to the appointment in September 2004 to learn the results of her biopsy. Leaving with the knowledge that she had cancer, she was supposed to go to an appointment to get her hair done, but Johnson hardly knew what to do.

“I asked [my husband], ‘Do I go to work? Do I go to my haircut?’ … he told me ‘you do whatever you want to do,’” Johnson said.

She called her brother, a doctor, who talked her through her diagnosis again.

“You hear the doctor, but sometimes you have to have it translated,” Johnson said.

She was also fortunate to have a client who was a cancer survivor and willing to share her story. She came in to see Johnson for an hour-long talk about her experience fighting cancer, and gave Johnson some advice on how to cope with what would come next.

The next week and a half were filled with appointments with oncologists, radiologists and more to prepare her for the surgery to remove the mass. Once she had recovered, she began chemotherapy at Red Cedar Oncology.

“Chemo is what I was most scared of. I didn’t know what to expect; you hear such horror stories,” Johnson said. “You’re strapped into a chair with all these IVs, but you feel fine … four hours later, it hurts. You feel like you were hit by a car. I was in a stupor, I could hardly function.”

It wasn’t long before her hair started falling out.

“My hair actually hurt, down in the follicles,” said Johnson. She knew it was time to shave it off. Her sister and some friends went with her to get her wig. “You don’t realize how much of your identity is in your hair, especially as a woman. Some say they felt really empowered, ready to fight [when they shave their hair off]; I just felt sad.”

Johnson’s chemotherapy treatments concluded and she moved on to radiation therapy at Sparrow Cancer Center. Though making it to a standing appointment every day for six weeks was taxing, it was nothing to chemo. She has been cancer-free since she finished treatment in May 2004.

“As hard as it all was, it was reassuring to know [the doctors] are watching over you [during treatments],” Johnson said. “I was very relieved, very happy to be done, but you feel cut loose … all of a sudden, boom, you’re free.”

The release

“First couple of years that’s all you think of: what if it comes back, what if it’s worse?” Berg said.

And there are reminders everywhere that not everyone is as lucky as these three survivors. Berg has a friend who has battled six different masses in a four and a half year span and counting. Tibbits’ sister’s cancer spread to her spine and about 50 percent of it has been removed to date as a result, leaving her in a brace all the way to her neck. The prospects can be truly sobering.

But eight years after her diagnosis, at age 69, Berg has found peace. “It’s like an instinct or something. I know it’s not coming back now.”

The true beauty of these women was not only in the strength they showed in their battles against cancer, but also in the bright outlook on life they have each taken away from their fights.

“Making memories has become very important,” said Johnson of her new take on life. “I am a planner … but I’m living in the now more, too. Instead of ‘someday let’s go to Hawaii,’ it became ‘let’s just go.’”

And they did. Johnson, her husband and her two children took a two week vacation to Hawaii a year after she was fully recovered. A year after that, she traveled to Belgium for a taste of her family history.

Each of these strong women said their most important resource while battling cancer was other cancer survivors. And to be sure, though it was their first time meeting each other, the ladies chatted and laughed through the entire shoot. They shared their battles through breast cancer, their pains and insecurities through treatments.

As Tibbits held up the wig she had just stopped wearing, Johnson came over, in awe of how beautifully Tibbits’ hair was growing back.

“Oh, it’s coming in so nicely! Mine came back all rough and crinkly,” Johnson said. They shared how they coped with losing their hair, and trying to grow it back out, as only those with a shared traumatic experience can. Hearing that Tibbits’ treatment had only ended less than a month earlier, Johnson was in awe. “You look amazing. You look so strong and healthy.”

For Tibbits, the short inch of hair growing back atop her head is only the beginning of a bright future of not only longer hair, but of hope and recovery. Now that her battle with cancer is behind her, she is taking better care of herself than ever before and looking forward to a long life.

“I’m grateful it was something I was able to do something about. It wasn’t like being hit by a car,” Tibbits said. “I’m trying not to sweat the small stuff; to just be happy.”