Don’t call Myra Whobrey a breast cancer survivor (even though she is). Instead call her a breast cancer thriver.
“I don’t know if I like that word, ‘survivor,’” she said. “I didn’t just survive, I decided to thrive. I took it and I ran with it. That’s one thing breast cancer brought me, a whole lot of clarity. I do think it’s changed my attitude and my personality for the best.”
Whobrey’s story is difficult and encouraging and even romantic all at once.
“When I share my story with you you’re going to hear ‘we’ a lot,” she said. “It’s because my husband who was just my friend when this started has been one of the biggest forces to help push me through this.”
In 2010 Whobrey was 32 years old, a widow, a mother of two and a nurse. Life was moving along when she started having pain and losing weight. It was a gallbladder issue but in the course of things doctors found breast cancer.
“It was just a fluke that I found out,” she said. “There was no real thing that would have clued me in to that because I couldn’t feel the lumps from the outside but I wasn’t doing frequent checks either… You’re 32 years old. It’s not going to happen to me. It happens to older ladies. It happens to people who have it in their family. It doesn’t happen to me.”
The day she learned, the moment her doctor told her she tested positive for cancer, her first thought was for her children. They had lost their dad only two years before and she was terrified for them.
“When they tell you the word, ‘cancer,’ immediately cancer equals death,” Whobrey said. “That’s what you hear; that’s what you see. Anything else the doctor said after that I don’t think I heard.”
She called her longtime friend Jason to tell him. He was not a romantic partner, just a good friend, someone in her social circle, all platonic.
“I gave him a phone call and I said I wanted to give him the results I got at the doctor’s office,” Whobrey said. “He said, ‘Well, I’d rather talk in person,’ and he came over. I sat across from him and said I had breast cancer and he pulled out a ring and said, ‘Will you marry me?’ He told me he’d rather have me for five minutes if he couldn’t have me for the rest of his life… That was two big shocks in one day. That is where this (love) began so I will always say cancer was my curse and my blessing.”
That was the highlight. Things went down from there. Whobrey said that everything that could go wrong did.
On Cinco de Mayo 2010 she got a double mastectomy, a three hour operation.
“It ended up seven hours I laid there,” Whobrey said.
While on the table she suffered a collapsed lung and her heart stopped.
That was the first time she was brought back to life.
Even after that long surgery and the loss of body parts, Whobrey looked forward.
“It was difficult mind-wise to see myself after the double mastectomy,” she said. “I was a full ‘D’ when I had both (breasts) so getting up and seeing both (gone) wasn’t as disappointing as I thought. I tried to keep a positive outlook on this.”
Then the difficulties started stacking up.
“I just kept getting sick and sicker after that,” Whobrey said. “Although the mastectomy was supposed to be one of the quickest reliefs in getting rid of the cancer that they saw, it was infection that then took over my body.”
For 47 days she was septic and had to stay in the hospital.
“And again, I technically lost my life a second time during that septic,” she added. “For 47 days my husband sat by my side and begged me to open my eyes, he begged me to get up.”
For Whobrey, it wasn’t a matter of just lying in bed trying to get better, there was more to deal with.
“I had procedures done in those 47 days without numbing medications all on an emergency basis where I’ve had to endure crazy amounts of pain,” she said. “Little by little everything started to shut down so at one point it became a 30% chance that I was going to make it through.”
That was a turning point. She thought about her children, her husband, her mom.
“I’m just not going to settle for this; there is no 30% chance,” she said.
After that, Whobrey started getting better. She married Jason She was released from the hospital and went back to her life. She started the process of rebuilding her chest, a decision she sometimes regrets because it did not go well.
She had a severe infection, the implants shifted one night and wound up in her back.
“They kept breaking loose,” she said. “I’m telling you, when they said there’s 1% chance something will happen, I was that 1%.”
One of the ways she kept going was with humor, “We laughed a lot of this off,” she said. “My husband and I had so many jokes because I had to laugh. If I did not laugh I was going to cry every day.”
Whobrey trudged on throughout chemo and radiation sickness, the infection treatments, the surgeries, 14 in all, and the exhaustion.
One surgery left her even more incapacitated.
“At one point with one of my emergency surgeries I had nerves severed and lost the use of my arms,” she said. “For three months, I had no use of my arms, somebody had to do every single thing for me and my husband did, no questions asked. Feed me, use the restroom, whatever I had to do, this man never questioned it or batted an eye. This is somebody that I’m not even married with at this time. I figured if anyone proved to me, ‘In sickness and in health,’ it was him.”
Whobrey had her last surgery two years ago. She said breast cancer never truly goes away; there are always residual health issues that crop up.
“I think the only damage it’s done long term is you stay with a lot of health effects,” she said. “You stay with things going on that you’ll always have to deal with so sometimes it’s hard when you’re tapped on the shoulder and breast cancer reminds you that ‘I’m still with you’ because I still have heart issues, things like that.”
Today Whobrey does body piercing at the Black Rose Tattooers on Fourth Avenue. She loves the job because, for one thing, it’s fun but it also allows her to get more involved with our community.
Throughout this roller coaster journey, the one big lesson Whobrey learned is what love truly is.
“I love as much as I can,” she said. “I had another breast cancer person tell me at the end of her journey what she learned the most was what it was to be really loved. She said, ‘It’s not going to be a big circle but the few that stay you’ll know what love is and you’ll learn to see that love in the world.’ That rang very true to me. You choose to see the beauty around you.”
Whobrey has this advice for anyone going through it.
“The biggest thing I’d want any-body to know in this situation is it’s not over,” she said. “It’s not over. When I was cleared, I felt like I was reborn, like a second life was given to me. It’s that that you have to fight for.”
Jason Whobrey has his own advice for caregivers and supporters.
“What I would say is as far as a supporter is make sure you also don’t forget about caring about yourself,” he said. “If you don’t take care of yourself, you’re not going to be a lot of good for the person who’s fighting that battle. That would be what I would say to other supporters of people going through it is just make sure you take a moment for yourself.”