Gloria Weston-Smart shares battle with breast cancer

Gloria Weston-Smart was a healthy 56-year-old woman with no family history of breast cancer.

She didn't have a lump in her breast and thought she was in the low-risk category for the disease.

Then one day a routine mammogram revealed calcification in her right breast. A MRI confirmed that it was invasive breast cancer. Weston-Smart said she didn't know what to expect, but Dr. Charles Scarborough at St. Francis Center Surgical Care gave her some valuable advice:

"You can talk to other cancer patients and they will tell you about things that happened to them," he said. "But please don't think that, that's your journey. Your journey is your individual journey."

From that moment, Weston-Smart said, God gave her a peace that surpassed all understanding and empowered her to combat the disease.

"Later that day when I told my brother, he was very emotional," she said. "I said, 'No, we're not going there. This is my journey. God has directed my path. We're going to go through this, and we're not going to ask why. We're just going to go through it.'"

Weston-Smart, a Columbus native, is executive director of Keep Columbus Beautiful. Before her diagnosis, she said, she was at a peaceful place in her life. She exercised regularly, tried to eat healthy and had annual mammograms. Her only other experience with cancer was in 2007 when her uncle was diagnosed with lung cancer. She went with him to the John B. Amos Cancer Center for his first treatment, and he died seven days later, she said.

"So I continued to drive by there not even realizing that some day I would end up there," she said of the cancer center on Veterans Parkway.

Weston-Smart said she had always been health conscious because her sister had renovascular disease and eventually had a kidney transplant. Her sister died in 2010 at age 58. The family also has a history of high blood pressure.

So, at age 40, Weston-Smart began having annual mammograms at the recommendation of her gynecologist.

Her breasts were dense and sometimes the results were hard to read. So, it was not unusual for her to repeat the exam on occasion.

In September 2012, she went for her annual mammogram at the Women's Breast Cancer Center and the results were unclear. Her gynecologist scheduled her for a biopsy at Dr. Scarborough's office. It came back positive, and the doctor sent her for an MRI, which was done at St. Francis.

"So, I went over there and they injected the dye," she said. "You lay down on this big unit that looks like a scanning machine, but it has a cut out for your breasts. You lay face down, your breasts go down in it, and it takes pictures."

Weston-Smart said she had read that invasive cancer would appear like little sprinkles of stars in the MRI, and that's what she saw.

"Because I did not have a tumor at all, there wasn't anything hard in my breasts at all," she said. "It was on the screen and it just looked like calcification building up."

At first, she was diagnosed with noninvasive (in situ) breast cancer and was a candidate for a lumpectomy.

However, the MRI revealed that the cancer was invading surrounding tissue. At that point, the doctor told her she could have a mastectomy.

But before leaving the office, she told the doctor she wanted to have a double-mastectomy, and two weeks later both breasts were removed.

During the mastectomy, she was also informed that she tested positive for the Her-2 gene, which makes her more prone to cancer, and was treated with antibiotics for a year.

After the surgery, her doctor suggested she talk to a plastic surgeon about reconstructive surgery. She reluctantly made an appointment, but opted not to go that route after hearing all it would entail. The procedure is a multi-step process that would have involved taking muscles from her back for the base of the new breasts, she said.

"I was like, 'I'm close to 60 years old, I'm not fitting to go through all of that,'" she said. "Because I'm single and divorced, I didn't have to talk with anyone else. I just made my decision. I just wanted to start the healing process."

Weston-Smart started chemotherapy the week after Thanksgiving. It was a series of six treatments, three weeks apart.

"I remember some days when I would wake up, look up and didn't have the energy to put on any clothes," she said. "I could only go to the bathroom and come back."

One night she was talking to her brother and her head began tingling. When she took a shower, her hair just started going down the drain. So she called her nephew and had him cut it all off.

She saved what she could in a little plastic bag, and began documenting other aspects of her journey.

Weston-Smart said her brother, Bobby Bynam, was a godsend. He lost his job during the recession, and he was there for her every day.

"He washed, cooked, cleaned and kept my yard straightened," she said. "If my light went on at night, he would come to the door to see if I was OK. Immediately after all six of my treatments, God gave him a job!

"It was faith, family and friends that brought me through," she said. "And I would tell anyone that you need to have that combination."

Today, Weston-Smart is cancer-free. She has blood drawn every six months to check for cancer cells. If results are good for six months, she will only have to have the checkups annually.

Since her recovery, she's been helping other cancer patients through their unique journeys.

About a year ago, she launched a cancer ministry called "There is a Balm in Gilead" at Fourth Street Missionary Baptist Church. The group holds regular support group meetings and helps raise funds for organizations like the American Cancer Society and the West Central Georgia Breast Cancer Center, which helps cancer patients with transportation, utilities and medical needs.

The group also had a breakfast that focused on eating healthy. They talked about soul food, how it started and why people need to change some of their dietary habits.

Although each breast cancer case is different, Weston-Smart likes to share what she learned on her journey with women going through a similar experience. Helping others made her journey worthwhile, and she's just glad to be alive.

"The one thing I can say is that I don't take a day for granted," she said. "I want to complete my task every minute of the day because we're not promised tomorrow."

This story was originally published October 4, 2014 at 9:50 PM with the headline "Gloria Weston-Smart shares battle with breast cancer."