This is the second in a series of articles on breast cancer survivors in recognition of October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Sandra Ashley and her husband Dale love to travel. The couple retired a few years ago, sold their home, bought an RV and took off on the open road.
For three years they traveled across the country enjoying their home on wheels complete with a chef’s kitchen, fire place, king size bed, washer/dryer and even two vanity bathrooms. “It’s big!” said Sandra, and they currently live in it in Mt. Olive.
But during retirement Sandra discovered a lump. “I hate to say this and it’s terrible, but I found it four years ago on Christmas Day. I found a lump and thought ‘that doesn’t look good’ but I didn’t tell anybody until October of the next year. I played the avoidance game.”
As Sandra said, she finally went to a physician and had a mammogram, then an enhanced mammogram; the doctors believed it was breast cancer. Then a biopsy was performed confirming the suspicions. “My blessing is that even though it had grown quite big, it was stage 1. It never got out of stage 1, praise be to the heavenly Father! It was not in any of my lymph nodes at all.”
She had several tests including the BRCA gene test. Sandra explained, too, that the doctors looked at 100 markers that rank whether a patient needs chemotherapy or not.
“I ranked at the bottom score so I didn’t have to have chemo or radiation. It was 0-25 – you’ll be okay without chemo; it’s not likely to come back or spread. Mine was a 25.”
Sandra and Dale had planned a trip to Minnesota before her discovery, and the doctors said go ahead with it. Surgery could wait a couple of months but they wanted Sandra to get an MRI while there, which she did. “But there was a major hiccup during the whole thing. When I walked in to get my results I thought, ‘there’s another shoe that’s going to drop.’ Sure enough, the doctor said ‘you’ve got a spot on your lung, actually two’ and the radiology report said it could be nothing, could be cancer. It was cancer.”
Before treatment for the lung cancer Sandra first had a double mastectomy – her choice – with breast reconstructive surgery. Then she had the biopsies done on the lung spots. It was at this point she learned that they were two separate cancers; the breast cancer had not metastasized. “The doctor said it could have been there for 20 years or it could have just popped up. He just didn’t know.”
Two days before the scheduled robotic lung surgery on January 10, Sandra was riding her bicycle trying to clear her head when she was attacked by three pit bulls. She pulled herself into a ball on the ground, covering her face with her arms, protecting her face, neck and chest. Even through her winter coat, the dogs managed to severely rip into her exposed arms. The owner finally heard her screams and called the dogs off but offered no other help. Sandra has no memory of the dogs coming at her or falling off her bike, only “being in a ball on the ground screaming trying to protect myself.”
A couple picked Sandra up and drove her to the hospital. Dale was already in town. Unfortunately one of the dogs could not be caught so Sandra now faced a series of rabies shots. “They don’t do them in your stomach anymore, thank heavens!” Sandra said. Now the shots are administered anywhere the dog bites and draws blood. She even had to have one during the hospital stay for the lung surgery.
Sandra confessed that she has always been a control freak. This, however, was completely beyond her control and it has been unnerving, especially the days before checkups. “I’ve had all my scans done everywhere and it’s terrifying. But this is something I want people to know. I was not near about where I needed to be spiritually. We were traveling, we weren’t going to church. I wasn’t reading my Bible, I wasn’t praying. I wasn’t doing anything bad, but I was into me and what I wanted to do. I used every excuse in the book for not going to church, not being involved. He has a way of waking us up, and He did; He woke me up. I truly believe this was for me to get my attention.”
Sandra and Dale moved to Mt. Olive to be near their son and his wife, who recently had a baby. While they are both from Smith County they spent 17 years in Virginia before retiring, living near their daughter when she had young children.
While they still live in their camper, they are planning to build a home this winter or spring, depending
on the weather. They still pull up stakes and hit the road in their RV. They have a trip planned to the Smokies for fall break. Sandra teaches two elementary science classes at Mt. Olive Elementary School.
Also they are planning a trip to Greece in the summer of 2025 and Sandra is counting the days.
“I’ve always had issues of trusting that God knows best. Am I perfect with it? Far from it. But I found peace, as much as you can when it’s always in the back of your mind. You look at your mortality and I did. I pray it never comes back.
“As bad as all that was, I have to say I wouldn’t want to go through it again but what came out of it…that’s what I’m grateful for. I always thought I was mentally strong…I found out I was not strong at all, but I know Someone who is!”
