“You gonna catch up?” Addie Smith called over her shoulder.
“OK, here I come,” Tasha Roper answered. Their Lawrence neighbors are now accustomed to the sight of the fast friends whizzing on motorcycles past the manicured lawns of their suburban community.
I’m a news anchor at WISH-TV, and the women were featured in a story I wrote for our 5 p.m. newscast. Addie’s bike is candy apple red, and on the day we met, she was wearing a black leather jacket and a broad smile. Tasha followed on her sleek silver sport bike, her thick curls pulled back from her heart-shaped face.
Tasha Roper seemed the picture of health, a sister with flawless skin the color of a Hershey bar and perfectly applied make-up.
But all was not as it appeared. Roper has stage-4 breast cancer. It’s aggressive, attacking her lungs with such virulence doctors made a dire prognosis.
“They told me in December after my total mastectomy that I could expect to die at any point. But at that time I was not ready to give up. I’ve got two small kids and they are my best friends. So to not be around for them, I just couldn’t deal with that,” Roper said.
She was 31. She’d found the lump herself completely by chance. Immediately she went to the doctor. He sent her home. After all, he said, she was too young to have breast cancer. Three times she returned to his office. Three times she was sent home. Then there was a winter day she’ll never forget.
“I tried to pick up a glass and my arm went numb,” she remembered. That day she went back to her doctor and demanded answers. Three mammograms, two biopsies, and four ultrasounds later, she got that answer—advanced breast cancer.
The young mother found herself facing a formidable foe, and she knew little about the disease. Then she met Addie Smith. Roper had been riding her motorcycle in their neighborhood, and Smith introduced herself. Roper soon learned the two shared more than a love of navigating the open road on two wheels. Smith is a breast cancer survivor as well.
“We just got to talking and actually we hit it right off from the beginning,” Roper said smiling.
Smith’s story is similar. She was 39 when she found a lump. And like Roper her cancer was aggressive.
“The grade of it was grade 3,” she told me. “It was the most aggressive cancer there is.” But Smith’s cancer was diagnosed earlier—stage 2. Surgery. Chemotherapy. Radiation. Remission.
It wasn’t easy. She decided life was for the living.
“After my chemo and after the radiation, the next year I was like, ‘I want me a bike!’” She bought that bike, and after meeting Roper, a friendship was formed.
Now they want to help other women battling breast cancer. The two are helping to form a local chapter of The Sisters Network, a support group for African-American breast cancer survivors. It will be one of many services provided by The Wellness Community, a non-profit cancer support organization.
That support is especially important for Black women. A study published in June of 2006 in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that although Black women get breast cancer less often than white women, if we do get it, we’re 77 percent more likely to die from the disease. That’s because African-American women are more likely to get a very aggressive form of the disease that predominantly strikes younger, premenopausal women and is difficult to treat.
That’s the case with Tasha Roper and Addie Smith. Theirs is a shared journey on a road I, too, have traveled. Although the type of cancer I had was different—I survived lymphoma and leukemia—my experience echoes with striking similarities.
My cancer was also aggressive and advanced—stage 4B. And I was young, 21, when I was diagnosed. Emotional and educational support was crucial for me and key in my healing. That’s why I believe so strongly in The Wellness Community’s mission.
As a board member, I applaud the formation of The Sisters Network. We, as African-Americans, must be willing to talk about cancer—encouraging early detection, joining the fight for a cure, supporting brothers and sisters battling the disease.
Quite simply, I believe educational and emotional support should be components of any treatment plan. Patients who take part in support groups consistently report a better quality of life, and that should be the aim for anyone facing cancer—no matter the prognosis.
As a two-time survivor, this I know with unwavering certainty: the battle against cancer is best waged while holding the hand of a friend.
Deanna Dewberry is an anchor/reporter for WISH-TV.
