Grandmother finds strength from granddaughter after both are diagnosed with breast cancer
For Lillian Gilbert, breast cancer has touched her family in more ways than one.
The 74-year-old grandmother from Madison has worked as a nurse for nearly half of her life, but in the past two years, she has dealt with breast cancer more than she ever thought she would.
Both she and her granddaughter were diagnosed with breast cancer.
Her granddaughter, Jasmine Davis, graduated high school in 2011 and was given a scholarship to play basketball at a college in Tennessee, but then she found a lump in her left breast that put a stop to her budding college career. They thought it was a cyst at first because she was so young, but after having a mammogram done, Jasmine found out she had breast cancer.
?It?s a different feeling. It?s an awakening and opens your eyes when you?re waiting on other people, and when it comes home to you, it?s totally different,? Gilbert said.
Jasmine ended up having to stay out of college for a year, missing her first season of playing basketball at the college level and ended up fighting breast cancer.
After doing several rounds of chemotherapy last fall, the doctors told Gilbert and Jasmine that the chemo did not shrink the tumor.
Then they found a spot in her right breast.
But according to Gilbert, Jasmine was strong, and shortly after a party celebrating her 20th birthday in February, she had a double mastectomy.
?I have never seen a young girl so positive like that,? Gilbert said of her granddaughter. ?She just wanted to go to school. After we got in the car after the surgery, she cried, but she was crying because she said she was healed.?
After her surgery, Jasmine began preparing to go to college and play basketball. She also began working with her grandmother at the Family Life Enrichment Center to save up her money for a car.
They thought everything was behind them; then something unexpected happened.
?I was laying in the bed one night, and I turned over and I felt a knot under my arm,? Gilbert said. ?I said, ?That doesn?t feel right.? ?
Gilbert called her doctor and immediately got a mammogram performed. Doctors ended up performing a biopsy, and just three months after her granddaughter had her double mastectomy, she was told she had breast cancer.
?I gained a lot of strength from her to see what she went through and that helped me a lot,? Gilbert said. ?I accepted it and I said, ?I am no different than anybody else.? There are millions of people around the world, even around here, that have the same thing. I am not exempted. I don?t know what purpose God has for me in my life, but I believe it is part of his plan for my life and I accepted that. I accepted healing.?
On July 18, doctor?s removed 13 of Gilbert?s lymph nodes, 11 of which were at stage 3 breast cancer. Gilbert will have her fourth chemo treatment today. She?s kept active in her church, though she has had to let some things go.
Gilbert has, however, had to stop working. She had to make the decision because of her white blood count, which has been low and on the borderline of the normal range.
From beginning as a certified nurses assistant in the 1960s to becoming a licensed practical nurse and going to college, she believes her love of nursing is what has kept her working for so long.
?Anybody else would have retired by now,? she said. ?I?m working at great place in Bishop, and the people there are so nice. I?m working as a direct care supervisor. I take pride in my work and just not wanting to quit work, so that?s the hardest part right now. I?m not ready to give it up. I?ll be 75 next year in May, and I love nursing. It?s all I?ve ever done.?
For now, Jasmine is getting ready to start her basketball season at Cleveland State Community College in Cleveland, Tenn., and her grandmother is hoping to get back to work as soon as possible.
?I love it there, and I?m not ready to give it up,? Gilbert said with a smile.
? Follow reporter Karah-Leigh Hancock at www.twitter.com/KarahLHancock or www.facebook.com/KarahLHancockABH
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