Jeana Whitacre dreaded the “Red Devil.”
During the summer of 2019, she sat on her chemotherapy chair in Birmingham, Alabama, and watched as the nurse slowly pushed the bright-red Adriamycin fluid — nicknamed “Red Devil” — into her veins.
“When they got it out to put in my IV,” she said, “I was like, ‘Oh, here we go.'”
A few months before, Whitacre had felt a pearl-like lump in her right breast when she was about to take a shower. The feeling was odd, she thought. Busy with work, however, she did not immediately pay attention.
On April Fool’s Day 2019, Whitacre — a 38-year-old nurse practitioner at Baptist Medical Group Golden Triangle Family Medicine in Columbus — received an ultrasound test. Before the radiologist informed her of the bad outlook, Whitacre looked at the screen and thought: “That does not look good.”
Days after, she was diagnosed with Stage I Triple Negative Breast Cancer, an aggressive type that could reoccur usually within five years after removal, she said.
“I really thought it was an April Fool’s Day (joke). I wanted to believe it was,” Whitacre said. “It was just kind of a shock, and I was like, ‘OK, where do I go from here?’ It was almost like … ‘Pinch me. I’m in a nightmare.'”
But soon, Whitacre sprinted to action. She was going to fight it.
“(My husband and I) knew right then that we were going to tackle this and beat it,” she said. “We refuse to let it beat us.”
Whitacre received her first surgery to remove both of her breasts on April 16, then another the next week. She started her chemotherapy on June 6 at the Bruno Cancer Center in Birmingham — a monthslong process that ended on Sept. 12.
To fight the side effects from the treatment, Whitacre ordered ice packs online to prevent her fingernails from falling off.
Sometimes, however, she could still be underprepared for what came her way. On June 18, Whitacre was driving home when her then-3-year-old son, Dylan, said from the backseat: “Mama, your hair is falling out.”
Hesitant, she stroked her hair. A strand fell off onto her lap, her pink pants.
That night, she sat on the front porch as her husband, Dustin, shaved her head clean with his clippers. The couple cried. So did Dylan and his brother Colt, 13, and sister Kendryn, 14.
‘I feel like I can conquer the world’
But Whitacre marched on, with the strength she said she gained from her family, friends and her coworkers at the Columbus clinic.
The day before Withacre’s first surgery, Kendryn and her softball team at West Point High School played a game and held a silent auction in her honor, she said. Kendryn painted the tail of her hair pink, she said, and the family wore pink T-shirts in solidarity.
Whitacre’s friends and coworkers also offered support in their own ways. She wears a necklace — a gift from her friend in Houston, Mississippi — that spells out “survivor” in Morse code. The clinic staff made her “boobie cakes,” she said, and they sent her cards with inspirational messages written on them.
“They had a little pack that was like inspirational cards that each one of them wrote,” she said. “They made it into a little book that said, ‘For Tits and Giggles.'”
Cindy Robertson, Whitacre’s coworker and friend for 14 years, was diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago at the age of 58. Both her mother and daughter, she said, had it. She had both breasts removed and has been on long-term medication for five years.
Whitacre said Robertson is among her biggest supporters. The 63-year-old nurse practitioner keeps a wristband on her office desk that reads, “#FightlikeJeana.”
Whitacre, Robertson said, is “special” to her.
“She’s like my child,” Robertson said, choking up. “She’s just somebody that’s been there and done that, knows exactly how you feel. … We can almost look at each other and know if you are having a bad day.”
And helping Whitacre felt like God’s will at play, Robertson said.
“He puts people in your life when they need to be there,” she said. “God had a place for me here, for her, if for no other reason.”
Whitacre is now roughly a year cancer-free. Looking back, she said she could not have persisted without the support she received.
“The funny, kick-ass attitude that most people, especially Cindy and my husband, gave me is really what got me through it,” she said. “I feel like I could conquer the world.”
After her last chemotherapy, Whitacre stood in front of the cancer center and held high a sign that read, “It’s my last day of CHEMO” and “Cancer tried. But I kicked ass!”
‘A whole new outlook’
Being a health worker and a cancer patient at the same time, Whitacre said, is scary.
“You know how bad it can be or how good it can be,” she said. “It’s always a fear that you just know too much. … It gave me a whole new outlook on cancer patients, and on patients in general.”
Except for days when she underwent and recovered from surgeries, Whitacre showed up to work for her patients as usual. With them in mind, she avoided receiving cancer treatment in Columbus so she wouldn’t bump into them.
“Because I want them to know that I’m still as strong as everyone. I can take care of them. That’s what I’m supposed to do,” she said. “I just didn’t want them worrying that, ‘My provider is gone.'”
In hindsight, Whitacre said she had “never been so ready for the end of something.” Early detection and a positive attitude, she said, are keys to a successful fight against cancer.
Whitacre said she wants to write a book about her experience. On her fifth cancer-free anniversary, she said she will celebrate.
“Once I hit my five-year mark,” she said, “I’m going to have a party. A survivor party.”
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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