Every day is a gift
Eight-year survivor grateful she was diagnosed early
As a retired nurse, Jane Harris of Cabot knew the importance of regular mammograms, but she put off her first mammogram because she never thought she would have breast cancer. When a mammogram led to her diagnosis of the disease, however, she said she felt fortunate to have caught t early and now works to raise mammogram awareness. Harris said she put off her first mammogram because she was at low risk. She felt fine, performed monthly breast self-exams and had very little family history of the disease.Then her brother, Rick Kerr, died of thyroid cancer at 55, and one of her grandsons was born two months later.That is when she decided to have her first mammogram at age 48 to help ensure she could watch the boy grow up. “I just had a feeling that I needed to go,” she said.“It’s not because I felt sick or anything. It was just a gut instinct that told me, ‘I shouldn’t end up letting this go,’ and sure enough, it was a good thing I went.” Although her first mammogram was clear, four years later n 2009, when Harris was 52, her mammogram showed a spot of Stage 1 invasive ductal carcinoma near her chest wall. The cancer was only visible on one view of the mammogram, she added. “They could have missed mine very easily,” she said.“I just uckily had the right radiologist reading my mammogram at the right time.” Ironically, Dr. David Weiss at Baptist Health, who diagnosed Harris’ brother with cancer, performed the biopsy that confirmed her cancer diagnosis, she said. Her initial reaction was anger, she added, and she channeled that anger into what would become her battle cry: “Get mad and fight.” “When you’re diagnosed, you’ve got two choices,” she said. “Either you can lie down and give up, or you can get mad and fight, and I chose to get mad and fight.” She had a lumpectomy to remove the tumor, followed by 33 radiation treatments and five years of tamoxifen. “I was just glad that I’m alive,” she said, “become some days can be bad days, but there’s still a silver lining in there somewhere. Sometimes you just have to look a little deeper to see it, but it’s there. So every day I wake up, it’s a good day.” The patients Harris met during her radiation treatments at CARTI in North Little Rock helped inspire her because many of them had a much harder fight than she did, she said, adding that the staff also reassured her during that time. “It was a calling for them, because they were a great support for all the people who were going through treatments,” she said.“They have angels who work at CARTI.They definitely are very, very caring people, and they go to the ends of the Earth for their patients.” She said she was not working during her cancer battle because she was caring for her husband, Larry, who was fighting bladder and prostate cancer. He overcame the disease, but it was rough for both husband and wife, Jane Harris said. “It can be very tiring mentally and physically, but you have to have a strong will to want to get through it,” she added.“I was bound and determined it wasn’t going to get us. It might one day, but right now, it’s not.” Her family was shocked but supportive, she said. A few weeks after her lumpectomy, Harris walked in Race for the Cure with her sister and two daughters, and she still walks in the race every year. “It’s really shocking to see how many other survivors there are, how many people are affected by breast cancer,” she said.“It affects so many people, and you don’t think, ‘I’ll be the one that will have that,’ but you never know.” That is one of the points Harris makes when she encourages other women to schedule regular mammograms — she did not think she would get breast cancer, but she did. If she had not had a mammogram, she said, the cancer might have spread and been harder to treat. “I tell everybody,‘Let me be an example for you on why you need to get a mammogram done’ — because it did save my life,” she added. Now that she is cancer free, she said she is grateful to have more years to spend with friends and family.The grandson who inspired her first mammogram is now 12, she said, and she has five grandchildren total. “It makes me very thankful to be here for my family, and to be able to see my grandchildren and watch them grow up,” she said.“I’m just really thankful that God has given me that opportunity, because it could have turned out a whole lot different and they are all such blessings in my life. I’m just grateful, so very grateful, to be here.”