Margie Fix

Tulsa, OK

Breast Cancer Survivor

Over the course of my life, I’ve had to grapple with numerous challenges.

Growing up, I had an alcoholic and abusive father. After I married my high-school sweetheart, I had four miscarriages, we adopted a little girl with disabilities and then we had two healthy sons of our own – all in short order. I also cared for my mother-in-law as she battled cancer.

We’re tough people. And I think the trials I faced at home, growing up, were the hardest. They prepared me for life in general. Things that came along after that just didn’t seem such big hurdles; they didn’t seem so hard to get over.

So, in 1995, when I received a diagnosis of cancer in my right breast, I prepared myself for this latest hurdle.

I’d had a mammogram just three months earlier which was fine. Then my breast started feeling sore, and I discovered a lump in it. After examination, my doctor recommended I find an oncologist. Although I’d been through a cancer journey with my mother-in-law, and also my grandfather, and was a little scared, I’ve always had a positive attitude. I’ve never thought “why me.” I just put things in God’s hands and go through whatever processes I need to as we go forward.

We were living at the time in Ray, Colorado, a town with a population of about 2000. Every trip to the doctor entailed a three-hour drive from home. The oncologist recommended removal of my breast. Test results following surgery revealed cancer in 14 lymph nodes as well, so I began six months of chemotherapy.

But before I went on to radiation, my eldest son began educating himself on cancer and cancer treatment. He and his brother were both attending Oklahoma State University on wrestling scholarships. Along with what he learned on the Internet, Derek also read an article in his local paper on Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) in Tulsa and told me he thought I should come to Tulsa for treatment. He told me I could live with him while I underwent radiation.

With family and church support, I agreed and came to CTCA. After meeting with physicians, I began radiation. And three months later, when tests showed the cancer had metastasized to a spot on my lung, I started a new round of chemotherapy.

As the years went by, subsequent bi-annual and annual tests showed I was doing well, and I thought I’d cleared this cancer hurdle for good.

In 2000, with both our boys now married and settled in Oklahoma with their wives and children, my husband David and I relocated to Tulsa as well, bringing our daughter and granddaughter with us. I was still receiving check-ups at CTCA, and living in Tulsa would make it easier to find good physicians to help with the disabilities both our daughter and granddaughter faced.

Cancer wasn’t uppermost on my mind when I went in for my annual check-up in August 2006. I was really preoccupied with family matters at the time. But, this time, tests showed a new spot, this one on the wall of my right breast. A biopsy revealed cancer, but before I could even begin treatment, a blood clot and collapsed lung put me in the hospital for a week. The day I was released, I began 25 radiation treatments on one of CTCA’s two TomoTherapy® HI-ART units.

I had such trouble with radiation years before. It burned my esophagus, and I’ve had lots of complications from that. But Tomo was great. This radiation treatment was so much better and easier. They’ve come a long way with techonology.

Following treatment, tests this past August found no spots of cancer in my body.

I credit God, my husband, family, church family and CTCA with keeping me bolstered, blessed and healthy as I’ve wrestled with cancer.

I don’t know how anyone makes it through life, and especially things like cancer, without the Lord. It’s amazing how God has everything planned out in our lives. And whatever He’s got planned, I’m going to walk through, with His help. When you’ve got a lot going on in your life, and then cancer hits you on top of everything else, you can sit around and worry yourself to death, or you can give yourself to the Lord and tell Him you need help. When you do that, it’s amazing what happens.

In addition to God, I’ve been blessed by my husband’s caregiving, my sons and all our family, my church family in Colorado – many of whom came down here after we moved to fix food for us and put it in the freezer just like they did when we lived there. And, CTCA is a blessing. I wish everyone would come here for cancer treatment. They didn’t give me anything for pain or sickness in Colorado. Here, they care about those things. They help you. And the way they treat you at CTCA … it’s unreal. You’re not a number. You’re loved, hugged, cared for. You’re family. I want people to have the best, and CTCA is the best.