McKelvey shares story of cancer survival
Kelly McKelvey didn’t really want to spend her afternoon on Nov. 14, 2008, waiting to be worked into the schedule at the busy Floyd Breast Center.
She had already taken the morning off to see her primary care doctor about a small knot at the top of her chest and thought she could just make an appointment “later,” even though she could tell by her doctor’s look, that “something was there.”
McKelvey’s family doctor told her to go to the Floyd Breast Center “immediately.” Even then, McKelvey says, “I kept telling her no, that I would make an appointment soon. Thank goodness, my Nurse Practitioner Susan Wilson told me a firm ‘no’.”
She got an appointment on the afternoon of the same day she saw her doctor. She was surprised to find that she could get all the tests, including a biopsy and ultrasound, that same day.
She was called into the Breast Center to discuss her results in the morning three days later.
Once in an exam room at the Center, the doctor came in, sat down beside her, and said, “I’m just going to say it – it is the big “C” word – Cancer.
“I had no idea what to think, and all I could do was cry. After that day, the days flew by. I hardly remember a whole lot of anything from being in shock.”
Breast cancer had only been confirmed on McKelvey’s left side, but some suspicious-looking “spots” on her right side concerned the doctors. She agreed to a biopsy on her right side, and while no cancer was found there, her medical team was concerned enough by what they saw that they told her she only had one choice: A double mastectomy.
By this time, McKelvey was a firm believer in
following her doctors’ recommendations.
On Dec. 1, 2008, only a little more than two weeks after she went into check on the “knot” on her chest, McKelvey had a double mastectomy.
The good news was that the cancer had not spread to her lymph nodes and therefore she wouldn’t have to have chemotherapy. She did, however, have
36 treatments of radiation and had to take Evista for 5 years.
It has been seven years since her diagnosis and she knows now how lucky she is that her primary care medical team wouldn’t take “no” for an answer when they told her to go the breast center immediately. She knows now that the earlier the tumor is detected, the better are the chances to be a survivor.
According to the American Cancer Society, the 5-year survival rates decline quickly as breast cancer proceeds from state zero to stage 4: At stage zero, there’s a 93 percent chance of surviving for at least five years after diagnosis; at stage 1, it’s 88 percent; at stage 3, it’s down to between 49 and 67 percent, and at stage 4, a patient only has a 15 percent chance of living for another five years.
McKelvey said it’s hard to believe it’s been seven years since her surgery. And it’s hard for her to believe she resisted the opportunity that literally saved her life because she didn’t want to take the time.
“Although it has to be one of the worst things that I have gone through, it has been one of the best experiences that I could have gone through. I have learned a lot and I realize how important breast cancer awareness is,” she said. “I hope my story will propel other women into early detection.”
“I have met many new people and friends along the way. I am very thankful for my family, including my family at Northside Elementary, my friends, the Floyd Breast Center and my doctors and nurses that helped me through. And most definitely thankful to be cancer free!” she said.