Be a fighter, Be an Inspiration!

My fight started all in the fall of 2013, my sister past away last year from breast cancer, and I had made a promise to her to start taking better care of my health. I started to go back to the doctors. But one evening I was sitting on the couch i had reached up to itch an area on my left breast I found a lump. I was only 47, I never had my first mammogram. So I schedule my very first one as it was hard on me to do since the passing of my sister Denise. She was quite the fighter.
Later on in the season towards winter I had become really sick with pneumonia, bronchitis and c,o,p,d, I knew there was something wrong with my body. I ended up on an ambulance going to Clinton, Missouri there they put me on the ventilators my carbon dioxide level was 94 and not enough oxygen. They life flighted me to the city where I eventually made it off the ventilators and they schedule a biopsy on the lump that I had found. Needless to say they found two lumps on the same breast. The results came back it was Stage 4 breast cancer. It had already spread to my spine and pelvic area.
As I got my strength up and was released, I started my Journey with my first round of chemotherapy it was the strongest of the 3 medications they could give a person. I lost my hair, i had sores on my feet and hands. I couldn't hardly eat, I lost 40 Lbs. But it put a hold on the cancer that was there. It was doing its job for that time. Then they scheduled me for my double mastectomy. I did wonderfully recovering from that in the summer time. Although missed out on swimming and all the fun stuff a mom could do with her son. He was a trooper right along with me. I am here a year later, my markers are down by 7, I choose to keep fighting!

Melissa Duncan
WARSAW, MO