According to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, more than 200,000 cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed this year and 40,000 will die from the disease. That’s the bad news. The good news is that through the efforts of the foundation and the generosity of the public, there are more than 2 million survivors. Many of them participate in The Race For The Cure. Twenty-two years ago, there was one race in Dallas, with 800 participants. Today, there are 100 races worldwide with 1.5 million joining in. Among those expected to participate in Denver’s edition Oct. 2 is Valerie Mathis. A former college athlete and the mother of three budding athletes, Mathis was diagnosed with the disease in May 2004 and had surgery shortly thereafter. Now cancer-free, Mathis spoke recently about her fight, her faith and finding humor in some unexpected places.
Anthony Cotton: A year removed from it, do you look back and say, “I can’t believe this happened”?
Valerie Mathis: You always think that it’s never over, because it can always come back, so it’s constantly on your mind. I think you value life a lot more, you realize what’s important, what’s not important. You soul-search for meaning … There’s a reason. It forced me to look at things a little differently.
AC: One would think, from the outside looking in, that you had things in perspective.
VM: I don’t know … You go through life and think about … I don’t know. It’s just a whole different perspective. I do value life and I always have, but anything can happen. It’s like a teenager thinking they’re indestructible. That’s kind of how I felt. And then you realize, “No, life is much more precious, and things can change on a dime.”
I don’t think I had that perspective. I had things in order, I knew my priorities, but I didn’t have that. You just think you’re going to live until you’re 80 or 90. I don’t know what God’s plan is for me, but I’m open to whatever.
AC: What was your approach with the kids? (Mathis and her husband, Ernest, have children ages 15, 13 and 11.)
VM: We were really cautious because we’ve had several families stricken with cancer in our parish, and it’s hard for kids sometimes to know the difference between the different types. We know several people with breast cancer, and we wanted them to know it was like this, that the cure rate was much better. I don’t even know how we said it, but Madeleine, who’s 11, said, “Is Mommy going to die?” The first thing. When we told them, we didn’t know a whole lot. We were always upbeat, we weren’t deceptive. Every step of the way, we informed them what was going on.
AC: Were you surprised by the depth of the support you received?
VM: I got several calls from cancer survivors, not only breast cancer, but other, more serious types. We’d seen it before through our church, but there was family and friends of family and friends of friends, it was surprising. One phone call was from this friend of Ernest, who had been through bone-marrow transplants and chemo. He was just tenacious. He played basketball all the way through it, and he would give me pep talks about fighting it. It was all the things that you need.
AC: Did you want to be left alone? Did you withdraw?
VM: No, because I’m not that way. I e-mailed friends and told them, I kept a little journal, rambling on about what was going on. I’m not that private a person. I wanted it to be known so I could help other women. One oncologist said I didn’t have any of the risk factors; I was low percentage. But he said, “Sixty percent of my patients are low-risk.” I was really shocked. Not that I couldn’t get breast cancer, but I did think, “It doesn’t happen to me, it happens to them.” But then when I thought about, I thought, “Why not me?” Then I thought, maybe I got it because I could handle it. If it’s gonna happen to anybody, then why not me?
AC: Looking at some of the risk factors for breast cancer, being a tall woman, when you have your first period, when you give birth. It all seems terribly random.
VM: I know. It’s not like I’m a picture of health, but I exercise. I felt I’d done everything right, yet I got breast cancer. All women should check themselves, do whatever they need to do, because they can get breast cancer too. You’re not immune to it.
AC: Had you been checking yourself?
VM: That was something else; the type of breasts I have. Dense breasts, don’t show anything on mammograms. I had no idea. I was doing these mammograms, and they weren’t doing any good at all. And again, I wasn’t thinking about breast cancer. You shower and you take a look and check yourself, but nothing formal, or anything like a larger-breasted woman might have to go through in terms of being more methodical.
AC: If the mammograms weren’t showing anything and here was nothing obvious, how did you discover it?
VM: A lump did pop up. I thought, “That.s weird,” but I also thought maybe it was because of my period, and my breasts were lumpy. I said I’d give it a week and see if it went away. And it didn’t. And being a procrastinator, I hadn’t had my mammogram for the year. It was supposed to be in February, and I discovered the lump in May. So I went in and told them, and they said they’d check it out. The radiologist said, “Well, I’m almost sure this is nothing.” It was real close to them saying to wait. And I’m the last person to go to a doctor anyway, I’m the last person to think anything could happen to me. God knew. He said, “If I’m going to give her cancer, I’d better put it somewhere where she couldn’t miss it.”
AC: So when did you get the result of the biopsy?
VM: That was painfully miserable. I had the biopsy on a Thursday. On Monday, my gynecologist was going to call, and she didn’t. I called her and she just told me the doctor would call me. I was furious. I didn’t talk to her on Monday, and on Tuesday, the gynecologist was still saying she had to talk to me. I said, “Look, lady, I need to know.” She knew. She was tiptoeing around. It was a really raunchy way to find out. I finally found out Tuesday afternoon, but I think they need to be on top of it a little more, to tell you to come in. On the phone all you hear is grades and stages and all the terminology, and you’re just sitting there going, “What does it all mean?”
I was just out there. I was in shock, with all these emotions going through me, but I still played tennis on Wednesday, I still had to run the kids to all their things. But by Thursday and Friday, this calmness just came over me. I was starting to realize that there are worse things that could happen to me.
AC: After the surgery you got a wig …
VM: I had to see the wig lady. She was awesome. She really helped me through everything; her daughter is struggling with cancer. She consults with a lot patients. She just has this gentle, calm way about her. She’d been through a lot and she had this wisdom.
AC: What was it like, needing to see the wig lady?
VM: Thankfully, my identity wasn’t my hair, because it’s not that great. I knew women who were like, “Oh, I had this beautiful red hair and I thought I’d die without it.” It was shocking at first. It wasn’t so hard on me as it was on Madeleine. It was freaky for her to watch her mom lose her hair. She always wanted me to put a hat on, or to put my wig on.
AC: Was it weird wearing it out in public for the first time?
VM: Well, it was better than being bald. It was beautiful – I’d never had hair like that before. Woooo! You wake up, you put it on and you’re done, no shampooing, none of that maintenance stuff. I would think, though, if I was riding on one of the kids. scooters or something, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that tree branch knocked my wig off?” I coached Madeleine’s soccer team, and I was losing my hair gradually. One time I had my hat on, and they said, “Coach, can we see you head?” I said, “You know what? It’ll cost you $5 to see my head.”
AC: So …
VM: They happened to have money for new socks, so they said, “Here.” I said I wouldn’t do it unless it was OK with Madeleine. She rolled her eyes and said, “I guess.” They said it was cool, that I looked like a model. And they all had stories. They all knew people who had gone through cancer and chemo. It wasn’t a mystery to them. It’s strange, but you almost feel normal because so many people have gone through it.
Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-820-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
