Having a biopsy come back positive for cancer is devastating, but Martha H. McGrew of Greenwood didn’t let it defeat her.
In 2003, McGrew found an odd lump on her breast, but for three months she didn’t tell anyone.
“I was afraid,” McGrew said. “I knew what it was.”
Cancer was not new to McGrew’s family. She lost her sister to breast cancer and her aunt to colon cancer. She also believes cancer is what suddenly claimed both her grandmother and mother.
“I went to the doctor, and he arranged a biopsy. Two weeks later it came back positive for cancer, and it was malignant,” McGrew said. “The mass was so big, I thought to myself, ‘Why is this happening to me?’”
“I froze when he told me. I felt so vulnerable. Getting that news was like a death sentence.”
McGrew, a mother of five grown children, didn’t tell her family at first. “I didn’t want them to worry,” she said. “My family looks up to me, and I didn’t want them to miss work or be upset.”
In fact, McGrew really didn’t talk to anyone.
She immediately started chemotherapy, but after her first couple of treatments, the doctors found another alarming surprise. The cancer had spread to McGrew’s lymph nodes.
The doctors diagnosed her with lymphedema and started her on radiation. To this day she has no lymph nodes in her left arm.
“I asked the doctor how long I would live if I didn’t take the chemo or radiation, and he told me five years,” McGrew said. “I felt like the disease was completely taking me over.”
However, the doctor offered her some good advice. “He told me that if I ate right, exercised and stayed as stress-free as possible I could beat this.”
That’s exactly what she did.
McGrew continued with the chemo, despite the hardships.
“My hair fell out, and my skin darkened,” she recalled.
• Contact Beth Thomas at bthomas@gwcommonwealth.com
