Feeling blessed beating breast cancer
Survivor Carmeta Burrell happy 16 years free of disease
SIXTEEN YEARS after overcoming her battle with breast cancer, Carmeta Burrell does not count herself as lucky, but “blessed”.
The 77-year-old St Catherine resident, who spent a decade fighting the disease between 1995 and 2005, believes prayers, love, support and good health practices are what brought her through.
“I wouldn’t say lucky, enuh,” she told The Gleaner on Wednesday ahead of today’s start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
“I don’t use that word. ‘Blessed’ and a whole heap a prayers from mi church. Mi church members prayed a lot for me, and my family and I took good care of myself,” added Burrell, the Anglican member of the Church of Reconciliation. “I give thanks for every day and I have this favourite song that I love so much, because of God’s grace and mercy I am here still.”
Burrell told The Gleaner that she discovered the first lump of concern six months after her 50th birthday.
“It was 1995, and the day after Labour Day ... . Labour Day I was doing some manual work like moving up furniture and the following morning I went to take a shower, and [when] cleaning under my arm, I found a lump,” she said, adding that the lump felt unusual.
Although her children and other family members said that it could have been caused by irritation from a deodorant, Burrell still decided to have a doctor examine it, having done her last mammogram about six months prior and was cleared.
When her doctor recommended a mammogram and a l ater biopsy showed that she has stage two breast cancer, Burrell was encouraged to do a mastectomy, radiation and chemotherapy.
“When he (doctor) was telling me about the mastectomy, I asked him – because the lump wasn’t found in my breast, it was under my armpit – if it was possible for me not to take off the breast, and he said there was another option if I didn’t want to,” Burrell told The Gleaner.
She opted for the lumpectomy. After roughly 10 radiation therapy sessions, Burrell said that she then did chemotherapy and was then placed on tamoxifen for five years.
Ten years after discovering the lump, she was discharged from the doctor.
“I didn’t feel no pain or anything. I didn’t have no pain under my arm or anything. It just felt normal. The only time I had pain was after surgery, there was some discomfort, and [during] the chemotherapy,” she said.
Burrell said she was not worried about her image due to hair loss caused by chemotherapy as she embraced a new, shorter hairstyle that she has grown to love.
“I trimmed mi head. I had taken off my hair before I did the chemo because I didn’t know what it was like, so I got a haircut, and from that I’ve not grown back the hair,” Burrell said, adding that although she took herbal products during her 10-year journey to recovery, she did not change her diet.
“I just do everything same way in moderation,” said Burrell, who continued in her job during the treatment.
“It didn’t stop me from working. Even when I was doing chemotherapy, I went and I did my chemo and I went back straight to work. It was some discomfort. You have this nauseous feeling, but that was it. I just head straight back to work,” she said.
Burrell noted the importance of exercise in keeping healthy.
“I wasn’t a sickly person and I exercised. I exercised a lot before I found out I had cancer, even now I’m [still] doing my exercise ... . It helps to build up your immune system and keep you healthy,” said the cancer survivor, who takes long walks at least four days per week.
She added that it is important persons not to become too stressed after they have been diagnosed with the illness as this could affect the body’s ability to fight the cancer.
“When I found out I had it, I didn’t go into self-pity and say ‘Why me?’. Even when my doctor called me and said, ‘Carmeta?’, I said, ‘Yes, Doctor. You’re telling me mi have cancer’,” she told The Gleaner before laughing. “I never feel any way sad and go into self-pity or anything like that. I just did whatever the doctor said I should do.”
Her advice for persons now fighting the disease is: “Don’t worry. Be at peace and make yourself happy. Don’t go into no self-pity and worry yourself.”
Noting that early detection is good, Burrell told The Gleaner that one lesson she has learnt from her cancer battle is to do regular health checks. And although the cancer has been in remission for more than a decade and a half, she still goes in for regular check-ups, just in case it has returned.
“I have not had any recurrence of it. Earlier on this year, I did the mammogram and everything was okay,” Burrell disclosed, saying that her only troubles now are diabetes and hypertension.
Breast cancer is the leading factor in cancer-related deaths among Jamaican women, and it is estimated that one in 21 women in the country will be diagnosed with the disease.
It is also the leading cancer among Jamaican women, followed by cervical cancer. The age standardised incidence rate is 43.1 per 100,000 women and the age standardised mortality rate is 18.3 per 100,000.
Approximately 300 women die locally from breast cancer each year.