Survivor follows ‘gut feeling,’ beats cancer
Stacy Cates
It only takes one look at Stacy Cates of Cabot to know she is a survivor — a proud one. The bright eye-catching, hot-pink streak in the front of her hair symbolizes a personal triumph over breast cancer. “It’s just hair,” she said. That’s a lesson Cates, now 38, learned firsthand after undergoing chemotherapy to rid her body of the disease of which she had no family history.
In early 2009, Cates, who was 34 at the time, discovered a lump in her breast. She tried to rationalize and talk herself out of believing that there was a possibility she could have cancer.
“I did the opposite of what you should do,” Cates said. “I did not go to the doctor because I rationalized it away and thought, ‘ Oh, it’s nothing.’”
Shor tly after f inding the lump, Cates, who is a special-education teacher and cheerleading coach at Cabot Junior High-South, went to her annual appointment with her family doctor. There she was met with reassurance that the lump was nothing to worry about, but in order to provide peace of mind, she was sent for a diagnostic mammogram.
The mammogram didn’t provide a clear read on the mass, and Cates left that day without a diagnosis and with what the doctors called “a good report,” along with a follow-up appointment in three months.
“I remember the doctor saying, ‘This is a good report,’ but something didn’t feel like a good report,” she said. “In the pit of my stomach, I knew something wasn’t right.”
Cates went with her gut feeling and sought help from her gynecologist.
“I said, ‘ What would you do if that report in your hand was your wife’s?’” Cates said. “He said, ‘I would tell her the same thing I am telling you: If it is going to help you sleep better over the next three months, go see a breast specialist.’”
After visiting with the specialist , Cates was told the imaging revealed a tiny mass that had to be magnified several times just to be seen, and that a biopsy could help determine if the mass was cancerous. A preliminary glance at the biopsy resulted in Cates being told there was a 50-50 chance it could be cancerous.
The following week, Cates got a call from the specialist and was officially diagnosed with breast cancer on May 4, 2009. It was recommended that she have a double mastectomy, which, it was believed, would leave her cancer-free.
“In the beginning, the doctor said, ‘ We caught this early. It is noninvasive cancer, and when you have your mastectomy, it will be a curative procedure.’ But during the mastectomy (on May 22, 2009) they took lymph nodes for a biopsy,” Cates said. “The pathology results said there were questionable cells in the lymph nodes.”
After that, Cates sought yet another opinion. This time, biopsied cells were sent to Vanderbilt University for
I remember the doctor saying, ‘This is a good report,’ but something didn’t feel like a good report. In the pit of my stomach, I knew something wasn’t right.” STACY CATES, teacher and cheerleading coach at Cabot Junior High-South
an analysis, which came back inconclusive. Cates was then told she needed to receive chemotherapy.
“[My first thought was that] I was going to lose my hair, and my babies would be scared of me,” she said.
At that time, Cates’ twin gir ls, Genna and Georgia, were 5 years old, and her son, Quinn was only 2. Cates began preparing them for seeing her without hair. She found a children’s book, Mommy Without Hair, which is written from a child’s point of view about a mother with cancer. That book became instrumental in bringing her children around to the understanding of what was going on with their mom.
Cates also incorporated the entire family into accepting the changes that would come with the chemo by allowing them to help her remove her hair before the medicine could. She said she allowed her children to cut her hair with scissors; then her husband, Jason, finished the job with clippers.
Cates underwent eight treatments of chemo, followed by reconstructive surgery, which had been planned months before to follow her mastectomy.
“Normally, they do chemo first and surgery second, but [at first] we thought I didn’t need chemo, so they had already done [the] surgery,” she said. “I already had my reconstruction surgery on the books, but we had to cancel that, and I did chemo and finished in December and then had surgery in January.”
In the meantime, Cates was met with an outpouring of support, not only from her family but also from the community and the school in which she teaches. Several staff members wore T-shirts with the slogan “Fight Like a Girl” to show their support, along with cooking meals for her family. Jacksonville and Cabot basketball players also joined together in a benefit basketball game against the Power 92 Jammers in her honor to raise awareness about breast cancer.
“I was overwhelmed that so many people wanted to give,” she said. “Every single day is a blessing.”
Currently, Cates is having checkups every six months to make sure there is no recurrence of the disease and is eager to help others who might be facing the same situation.
“Go to the doctor,” she said. “Don’t talk yourself out of it. I’ll tell my story to anyone who will listen because I want to help anyone listen to their gut feeling. If you think you are not OK, get it checked out.”