For Evette Rice, a special education inclusion teacher at Columbus Middle School, the first indication there was something wrong with her health was immense pain in her left arm.
She went to doctors and was treated for potential arthritis and then tendonitis, but all of the diagnoses were wrong. As things got worse, her doctor referred her to a women’s clinic in Oxford, who then referred her to the North Mississippi Cancer Care Center in July 2013.
“When they gave me the address, they didn’t tell me it was the cancer center,” Rice told The Dispatch. “So when I got there my anxiety levels went over the roof. I said to myself, ‘Nobody told me that I had cancer.’”
Following more testing, Rice’s doctors determined she was suffering from Stage 2 breast cancer, with at least three tumors on her left breast that were about to metastasize.
“They did catch it in time, so expediently that … the radiologist at the time refused to allow me to wait a month, three weeks or even two weeks before surgery,” Rice said.
A week later, she underwent a successful mastectomy on her left breast. The surgery was so successful that, to her and her doctors’ surprise, Rice didn’t have to undergo chemotherapy or radiation.
“I thank God today that I had the medical team that I was introduced to because otherwise things may have been so different for me,” Rice said. “(And for) the support of my family, who walked through it with me every step of the way.”
It was her family, particularly her then-foster children Andre and Jaliyah, who kept Rice motivated during her illness.
“My son and daughter were the two people who inspired me the most as far as pushing forward to be a survivor,” she said. “I knew I needed to do it if I didn’t do it for anything or anyone else except the two of them because they were foster children in my home. … Today, I just see it was the Lord restoring me for a real purpose.”
In spite of the cancer, Rice said there’s nothing about her experience she would change because of the lessons she learned along the way, especially when it comes to cutting off negativity.
“It’s important I would say to all cancer patients as well as survivors, limit your association with negative people … regardless to who they may be because those types of things … tend to intensify any illness that you may be going through, especially that of cancer,” she said.
While her treatment was successful, Rice still has five small nodules of tumors on her right side that haven’t progressed to the point they need to be removed. For the rest of her life, Rice will have an annual visit with her oncologist and her surgeon to ensure things are “still moving in the right direction.”
“Your battle is not over just after treatment and surgery,” Rice said. “The battle continues for the rest of your life.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
