By Bonita Wilborn
In May of 2008 Rachell Givens went to fill an appointment with Dr. Deerman, her family doctor. She was going for her annual checkup, but knew that she had a lump in her right breast.
Rachel was a former employee at Sola Electric, where she had to regularly use air guns and other equipment that is hard on the body, so she’d experienced knots and bruises over the years that would come and go. She hoped this particular knot would be the same as all the others before.
But when she went for her checkup and the knot was still there, and even larger than any other in the past, Rachell said to the, “He’s going to find something.”
After the examination she was scheduled for a mammogram and a sonogram, which she had two weeks later. Which led to surgery on June 5, that same year, with Dr. Walker in Fort Payne.
Rachell’s surgery involved a total mastectomy of the right breast and the removal of about a dozen lymph nodes. “They said it was in stage 3 or 4 already,” Rachell explained.
Then in July, after about a month of recovery from the first procedure, Rachell underwent yet another procedure. This time it was for the purpose of installing a port for her chemotherapy treatments. She began her treatments soon after that. “I took six treatments every few weeks, and it was the highest dose they could give me, the Red Devil.”
On October 2008, Rachell finished here last chemo treatment with Dr. Aries, and was told that the treatment had worked well enough that she would not have to undergo radiation. “He put me on the cancer pill for five years, and I still go and have the port flushed of the removal of so many lymph nodes,” she said.
Although Rachell still has an annual checkup at the cancer center, this year she has celebrated her 10-year anniversary of being cancer free.
Although Rachell was a life-long resident of the Fyffe area, after her health issues with cancer and a mild heart attack in 2010 she currently lives with her daughter in Fort Payne. “My daughter was the one who took me to all of my cancer treatments and sat there I the waited in the waiting while I had the treatments.”
Rachell is certainly an advocate for cancer patients. She regularly goes to the cancer center in Fort Payne just talk with others who are still undergoing treatment and recovery. “When I was having treatments,” Rachell recalled, “I’d come out and people would ask my name and if they could put me on their prayer list. I’d tell them I didn’t care a bit, because that’s what was getting me through. Now when I go to get my port flushed, it might only take 15 minutes, but I might stay and talk with the patients a couple of hours. I have them all laughing and that’s what makes my day special. If I can put a smile on somebody’s face or say a kind word it makes my day.”
In the ten years since her diagnosis, surgery, and treatment for breast cancer, Rachell Givens hasn’t had a single recurrence of her cancer. She said, “I’m lucky, thanks to the good Lord watching over me. My daughter got me a tag to put on the front of my car that says, ‘I stood strong, I fought hard, I won!’ and there’s so many that don’t win.”
Another aspect of Rachell’s cancer advocacy that she began this year was working with Crowne Health Care to help get recipes and advertisers for their Relay for Life Cookbook. Rachell said, “That’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like that, but I went out and got recipes and advertisements for them and then I helped them sell over $400 worth of the cookbooks. I thoroughly enjoyed it. If I can help somebody just a little bit, it makes me feel good. And I want to try to give back when I feel like it because they have all been so good to me.”
Rachell had one final message that she expressly wanted to convey, “Ladies, be sure to get your mammograms, don’t give up just keep fighting, and God bless everybody.”