Purdy woman uses grandmother’s, husband’s experiences in cancer fight

By Jordan Troutman [email protected]

According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation one in eight women will in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer.

Misty Lane, 50 of Purdy, was one.

Lane is a 1991 graduate from Cassville High School with three children and two grandchildren, and another one on the way.

“My husband and I actually met back in the fifth grade when we went to Exeter school,” Lane said. “We reunited later in life and were married in 2015.”

On Dec. 7, 2022, at 11 p.m., Lane said her life changed forever.

“My dad needed to go get a mammogram because of some pain in his armpit,” she said. “He didn’t want to go, so I decided to get mine done at the same time.

“I think it was God way of getting me to the doctor to get checked.”

They found a tumor in Lane’s left breast.

“I saw the results come through at 11 p.m.,” she said. “The doctors called me the next morning at 8 a.m.”

Lane said the first couple of weeks after her diagnosis were full of doctors appointments.

“It’s a very aggressive form of cancer,” Lane said. “Twenty years ago, it would have been a death sentence — there wasn’t a treatment. But now, there are treatments. I will be on some sort of care or treatment for the rest of my life.”

Lane said one of the main fears is for her cancer to metastasize.

“I am on immunotherapy with chemo,” she said. “I started chemo two days before the new year.

“My first round of chemo was completed the day before my birthday, on April 11, 2023.”

On May 4, Lane underwent a double mastectomy.

“During surgery, they found that my body didn’t respond to the chemo I had just completed,” she said. “The cancer cells are smart, and they mutated. I had all the side effects of the chemo, but the tumor was still there.”

Lane’s second round of chemo started in the middle of May and is expected go to into April 2024.

“The difference with immunotherapy is that it hides the chemo drug inside of it,” she said. “It’s like the Trojan horse. I go in every 21 days for the treatment.”

Lane said the side effects are not as severe, as well.

“My hair is starting to grow back,” she said. “And I don’t have as much nausea as before. But, I still have a lot of fatigue. I have lost 80 pounds since the beginning.”

Lane lost her hair within the first month of her first chemo round.

“I knew it was coming,” she said. “But the reality of it was different than I thought it would be.

“I had long, thick hair, and when it started to come out in little bits I thought, ‘Maybe I won’t lose it all.’” Lane said after that it started falling out faster and faster.

“I called my daughter-in-law; she does my hair,” Lane said. “I told her I was ready to shave it. With my daughter-in-law’s help, my 4-year-old granddaughter shaved it for me.”

Lane never bought a wig after her head was shaved.

“I wore sock caps and ball caps,” she said. “For me I felt like if I bought a wig to wear it would be like I was hiding and not embracing myself.”

Lane said she understands this isn’t the same feeling everyone has, but she needed to be honest with herself.

“I wanted to be me, and I am glad that I did it,” she said. “I never had a negative experience in public, I thought that it was kind of cool how people would come up to me and offer a kind word.”

Lane said she couldn’t have asked for a better person to go through this with than her husband.

“He said, ‘I’ll be here with you and for you, I’m here to hold your hand,’” she said. “He was diagnosed in 2008 with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma stage 4-B. That is the most advanced stage.”

Lane said her husband was 34 at the time, and because of his age and health, his doctor told him he could beat it if he was willing to fight.

“He told the doctor, ‘I have two young boys, I don’t have a choice except to fight,’” Lane said. “In August 2009, he was in remission, and he remains cancer free today.

“He gave me a lot of advice about chemo – but he understood how to just be there with me when I was too sick to eat or too tired to say what I wanted and needed,” Lane said.

Lane said her husband’s understanding has been a blessing, and he has not been the only one in her family.

“In January 2022, my grandma was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer,” she said. “She passed away in mid-March. She had always been the strongest woman I knew.”

Lane said hr grandmother was strong through the hardest part of her life.

“I feel like she went through what she did so I could see and learn what I would need to know — not knowing that I would need it just 8 months later,” she said.

Lane said there are so many women out there who don’t have the kind of support that she has.

“You see the truth in people through these kinds of experiences,” she said. “I always knew I had good friends and family, but to see how much they love me has truly been incredible.

“The biggest thing I learned is that it truly is the little things, a text, a card or a prayer, it doesn’t cost much to show support. Sometimes I just needed someone to say, ‘We love you, we have you, it’s going to be OK.’”