Now 20 years in remission Mitchum is a proud cancer survivor

Breast cancer has affected Gail Mitchum’s family in a flagrant way. She had five aunts who suffered with it on her father’s side. Her mother’s sister had breast cancer, too.

On a routine day during tax season in 1997 Mitchum found herself facing cancer as well.

Mitchum said she was having regular mammograms and at the age of 41 had a mammogram that showed a slight increase in a spot that had been seen the year before. Mitchum says she wasn’t even aware she had a spot the year prior. She thinks the doctor didn’t make mention of it because it was so small. Her physician at the time referred her to local surgeon Dr. Sam Sawyer who reviewed the spot on her breast.

“He looked at it and he said it was small,” said Mitchum. “I could either go ahead and have a biopsy or wait six months and see if anything changed. At first I guess I was just not wanting to bother with it, or admit it, that something could be there, so I said I would wait.”

Waiting on the surgery was Mitchum’s original thoughts but her husband was adamant that she approach biopsy sooner rather than later. He said, “Oh, no you’re not going to wait. We’re getting this thing taken out.”

With that push from her husband she made the decision to call back and get the biopsy done.

Mitchum recounts the moment that she was told the news that the biopsy was cancerous. “When I came back in with my husband, Dr. Sawyer said, ‘Yes, it turned out to be cancer. We need to go ahead and schedule to have it taken out.’” She said that at that time, “I really wasn’t upset about it and I really wasn’t thinking that it was going to be anything really drastic. I was just thinking, ‘Okay, I have a lump, take it out, that’s it. We’ll take care of it. No big deal.’”

She shared that her husband, George, was more upset than she was and talked about how her faith in God and even-keel nature kept her at peace in the midst of the morbid news. Also, Dr. Sawyer’s confidence reassured her that everything would be okay. He told her he got all the margins. Mitchum explained the fact that hers was small gave Dr. Sawyer the feeling that there wouldn’t be a need for chemotherapy and she would only have to do radiation therapy.

Along with the biopsy all her lymph nodes were removed and the results came back as all negative, which was another good indicator that she would not need chemotherapy because it wasn’t in her lymph system. She visited Dr. Steven Stokes who recommended seven weeks of radiation therapy.

Mitchum drove down to Dothan every day for seven weeks every morning before work.

“I’d go down there every morning, I’d get my radiation treatment, and then come back up this way and go to work,” said Mitchum. “They kept asking me­­–I thought it was very odd. I’d see Dr. Stokes about every third or fourth treatment time. He’d ask me, ‘How are you feeling?’ I’m like, ‘I’m feeling fine. I’m not sick, I’m not tired.’ It’s like, ‘I’m fine.’”

“After several weeks of this, I finally asked the nurse, ‘Why do you keep asking me how I’m feeling?’ She said, ‘Because most people, radiation therapy really wears them out and they get very tired from the radiation.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m not having that affect.’ And I didn’t. I didn’t have any side effects from it whatsoever. Other than for a few days they had to stop because it was burning my skin. But, other than that, I had no effects whatsoever from the radiation.”

After the completion of her radiation treatment Mitchum saw Dr. Sawyer every three months for a year to have mammograms. Since that time in 1997 Mitchum has experienced no problems and no reoccurrences.

Since her breast cancer scare and given her family’s history of breast cancer Mitchum is vigilant and diligent when it comes to checking for any reoccurrence of breast cancer. She gets her yearly mammograms and also encourages her three daughters to stay vigilant for any cancer warning signs.

When she found out about her cancer diagnosis in 1997 her daughters were highly upset like their father. “They were worried like my husband,” Mitchum said. “‘Oh, this is going to be so bad. Mom’s going to be sick. Mom’s going to have all this trouble.’ But, mom never had any trouble so it’s like I tried to tell them, ‘I’m not looking at it like this is something really bad.’”

Mitchum considers herself blessed when it comes to what she could have faced.

“I’m not sure what it would have been like to have to go through the chemo,” said Mitchum. “I’m glad I didn’t, seeing some of the patients that come in here and even knowing some of them personally as to how bad it was for them. So, I’m really glad that the Lord blessed me in the fact that He’s like, “Okay, I’m going to show you this, but I’m not going to do this.”

Even though she was able to avoid chemotherapy she wasn’t able to avoid her life being threatened on more than one occasion during the period that she was diagnosed with cancer. Mitchum believes that it’s God who brought her through the 90s, one of the roughest periods of her life. Along with being diagnosed with breast cancer four years earlier, she suffered from a heart attack in ’93. Then the year following her cancer diagnosis she was found to have had a brain aneurysm that she was only aware of after her brother died from an aneurysm and she got checked out after the fact.

“I’ve been very, very fortunate since then,” said Mitchum. “I guess I had more faith in Jesus that He was going to take care of me and I didn’t have to worry about it, really. That’s what I thought the whole time. Was that, He’s going to take care of me; I don’t have to worry about it.

“Anytime I’ve had to deal with any kind of sickness, even with my children, I have always looked at it like, ‘Okay, we know what it is. Let’s fix it and let’s get on (with it).’ I have not been the one who has worried about oh, what if this, or what if that, or anything. I’ve just never looked at it that way.”

Now 20 years in remission Mitchum is a proud cancer survivor and coordinates the Relay for Life team at her job in her fight for the remission of all sufferers. “I have been very active with the Relay for Life,” Mitchum said. “We started out with a team here (at Sawyer Surgery Clinic) when I first started working here. I got involved with it being a survivor and being involved with the Sawyer surgery team and raising money and going out and participating.”

Her participation in the Relay for Life movement has opened her eyes to the impact of cancer across the board. “There’s so many different cancers that the medical field is finding cures for, or trying to find cures for and having a better handle on detection and finding it early and being able to treat more people for them to be survivors (is what I’m aware of now),” said Mitchum. “Because the relay is for not just breast cancer, but cancers, and we raise money for all cancers.”