Body
By Kimberly Feldkamp
“Cancer doesn’t discriminate.”
These were the first words out of Jon Britton’s mouth, said quickly, matter-of-factly, as I took a sip of coffee, uncapped my pen and began to listen to his story.
“Cancer doesn’t care about age, race, gender, religion. It just doesn’t care, and it doesn’t discriminate,” he said.
And Britton would know.
At the mere age of 35, the world as he knew it would be forever changed. It started with a bad cold, and a knot in the right side of his neck. Jon went to the doctor, got some antibiotics and hoped to kick the cold. The medicine worked, but even as the cold faded, the knot in his neck did not.
“The doctor did a fine needle aspiration on my neck–he stuck a needle in the knot, pulled out some cells and ran some tests, but everything came back negative,” Britton explained. “But the doctor still thought the knot looked suspicious, so I had surgery to take the knot out. That was a Thursday or Friday…Monday morning, 9 a.m., the phone rings. And when the phone rings at 9 on Monday morning, it’s never a good thing.”
He paused for a moment, and looked around the busy restaurant.
“I never once thought it could be cancer,” he said.
Turns out, it was Stage IV tonsil cancer.
“I went through a lot of emotions when I heard the word ‘cancer,’” Britton said. “Shock, horror, fear. You hear it and immediately think you’re gonna die.”
Britton heard the news in September of 2005. That November, he and his wife, Ann, were expecting their first child.
“You feel a lot of anger,” he said. “It makes you question a lot of things, especially when you’re just 35 years old.”
And especially when you’re in the best shape of your life, as Britton says he was when he was diagnosed. He was a black belt martial arts heavyweight fighter, competing at the national level. He worked out several days a week, competed on the weekends and said he never felt better.
“My doctors did say my age, my health and the fact that I was not a smoker was on my side, and increased my chances of survival,” he said. “But at the same time, I was young, healthy and a non-smoker, and they didn’t know what caused it, especially because tonsil cancer is very rare in the U.S.”
Britton would undergo a hard-core chemo treatment of Cisplatin, beginning in October of 2005. He had three rounds of the treatment, each of which lasted for at least six hours, for three months. As he was going through his chemo in November, his wife was in labor.
“I just remember getting sick in her hospital room from the chemo, as she was in labor,” Britton said. “One of the nurses got me out of the bathroom in time to see my son, Evan, being born.”
He went on to have 35 radiation sessions for seven weeks, one treatment a day, Monday through Friday. During that time, he also had chemo once a week. He says he got through it with the help of his support system: an amazing wife, along with family and friends.
“I listened to The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack over and over to get through the chemo,” he said. “And my martial arts coach and good friend, Sean Elliott, helped distract me by talking about fighting.”
Britton also says a co-worker and close friend, Lynn Houston, helped him get through some of the dark days.
“Lynn helped me keep my sanity. She took away a little bit of the fear, a little bit of the anxiety,” he explained.
For nine years, Houston battled breast cancer. Britton said her advice, support and just the fact that she could relate to what he was going through helped him get through. Sadly, Houston’s battle with cancer ended last November. Britton said she was one of the toughest fighters he knew, and she’s one of the many reasons he got involved with Relay for Life.
Tiffany Howell’s story isn’t all that different. She knew immediately that something wasn’t right. It was a Saturday morning in January of 2007, when she was taking a shower, preparing for a surprise birthday party, when she realized something was wrong.
“The water just hit me, and something felt weird, and something told me to do a self-check,” Howell said. “That’s when I felt a lump in my breast, and I just knew.”
She says she still vividly remembers that day three years ago; the day that everything changed for her.
“My initial thoughts were ‘What am I going to do?’ and ‘How’s this going to end?’” she said.
Like Britton, Howell was just 35 years old when she found a lump in her breast. She had the healthiest year of her life: no flu, no colds, nothing, and suddenly, standing in the shower, she found a lump the size of a golf ball and her whole life changed in an instant.
“I cried most of that day,” she said, as she remembers thinking of her husband, and her two young children, Ryan and Casey. “This couldn’t be happening to me.”
That following Monday morning, Howell went to the doctor. The doctor said the lump felt firm, but told her it was probably just a cyst. She says she didn’t feel reassured by the doctor’s words, so she set up a mammogram and ultrasound but couldn’t get in until two weeks later. Blood work would reveal that she was in the clear, but Howell said breast cancer only shows up if you do a specific kind of test.
“I just remember the nurse took some mammogram pictures, and there was a young girl in the room shadowing them, you know, doing some training. I just remember the way that young girl looked at me, as if to say ‘I’m so sorry,’ and I just knew, knew it before the doctor told me,” Howell said.
The doctor told her that she had a nasty tumor, and believed it was breast cancer. He also wanted to check her lymph nodes, too. A biopsy would confirm her fears: eight out of 11 lymph nodes came back positive for cancer.
“That felt like an out-of-the-body experience,” she said. “You heard it, but didn’t hear it, didn’t believe it was real. Then you go through every emotion: you’re sick, you’re crying, praying; you’re mad, you’re devastated.”
After many tears, Howell said she began to accept it.
“I finally said, ‘Okay, it is what it is, let’s get it over with and deal with it.’”
She decided to have a double mastectomy, because she heard that breast cancer came back. The day before her February surgery, she recalls being in a lot of pain. Her chest was throbbing and aching, and she later found out the tumor had grown. It was caught early, but her cancer was very, very aggressive.
“[Surgery] was an easy decision for me. I just wanted it gone,” Howell said. “I remember the morning of the surgery my doctor asked me if I was sure. He said to me, ‘Don’t you care how you look?’ I told him ‘I’ll care about how I look after I beat this.’”
After surgery, Howell underwent five months of aggressive chemotherapy, then one month of radiation. Though she never got physically sick from the chemo, she did lose her hair. Her husband, Jerry, bought her a pink Boston Red Sox baseball hat, and she says she wore it 90 percent of the time she had no hair.
Looking back, Howell says one of the toughest things she had to deal with, though, was explaining everything to her kids.
“I remember one day I was driving in the car and Ryan asked where my cancer was,” she said. “He asked if you can die from it. I remember I had to say a prayer before I answered him. I said ‘Yes, Ryan, you can, but I’m not going to.’ Then I remember praying, ‘Please God, don’t let me lie to my kids.’”
Thankfully for Howell, her answer has not been a lie. The combination of her surgery, chemo and radiation helped her beat the cancer. Her lymph nodes were scanned after the surgery and came back clear.
“God put angels in my life every day. The doctors, the nurses, friends, family–all of them were there every step of the way,” she said.
Now, she wants to help others who are in a similar situation.
“I want people to know that cancer is not a death sentence,” she said. “I want to encourage them and give them hope.”
That urge to help others led Howell to start a cancer support group at her church, Timberlake United Methodist. It also led her to Relay for Life.
Relay for Life is a chance to celebrate the lives of people who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost and fight back against the disease. It’s a huge global fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Folks throughout different communities form teams that camp out at a local high school or park, and take turns walking around a track or path for a full 24 hours. The event lasts through the night because cancer never sleeps.
The Relay for Life of Lynchburg is set for Friday, June 4th, and will go into the morning of Saturday, June 5th. The event will take place at Heritage High School.
“Relay is so inspiring,” Howell said. “Every year, you meet so many amazing people, with such amazing stories.”
“It’s really a celebration,” Britton explained. “It’s a chance to come out, walk a little and celebrate another birthday. It’s just really inspiring…and every dollar counts. Every dollar can help someone get to a treatment, can help find a cure.”
Relay starts with the inspirational Survivors Lap, where survivors help everyone celebrate the victories they’ve achieved over cancer. After dark, there’s the Luminaria Ceremony, an emotional time when people honor those touched by cancer and remember loved ones lost to the disease. Finally, there’s the Fight Back ceremony, where folks make a personal commitment to save lives by taking up the fight against cancer.
“I challenge anyone to think of someone who hasn’t been affected by cancer,” Britton said. “Think about it. Everyone knows someone, a family member, a friend, a friend of a friend, who has been affected by cancer.”
Both Britton and Howell agree that they wouldn’t have been able to get through everything without the support and love of family and friends, and their teams of doctors and nurses. And both of them want to give back, to help others, and they do that through Relay.
“There have been so many advances in treatment. You don’t know how your money can help save a life,” Howell said. “I just want people to know there is hope. I believe 90 percent of your treatment is the attitude of how you tackle it. For me, it wasn’t an option–I had to beat this.”
Although breast cancer is never in remission because it pops up in the blood stream, Howell said she feels that she’s beaten it. And she wants to help others to keep fighting.
This May, Britton celebrates four years of being cancer free. Though he says there’s always that fear every time he heads back to the doctor, he hasn’t let his cancer hold him back.
“You really have to seize the day. Relay does so many good things,” he paused for a moment, and blinked back tears before speaking again. “I relay for my boys…I relay so they don’t have to worry about it.”
Relay for Life of Lynchburg
Heritage High School
Friday, June 4 to Saturday, June 5, 2010
7 p.m.
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