Those are the three words no one ever wants to hear, but for Nanci King-Sterett, it came. It came at the young age of 32.
The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
by Dessa Rodeffer, The Quill Staff
"You have cancer!"
Those are the three words no one ever wants to hear, but for Nanci King-Sterett, it came. It came at the young age of 32.
"I didn't flip out. I just told myself, no one is going to raise that little boy except me."
Nanci was a mother of a son, 18 month old Andrew, and married to a very supportive husband, Brian Sterett, an employee of Weir's Fruit Farm when she found a lump from a self-breast exam.
She had surgery and then started the chemotherapy.
"I didn't do well," she said. "The scars I could cover, but I lost my hair."
As she prepared to walk in her first Relay For Life, she dehydrated over night and was taken to the hospital.
"Brian gave me huge support and is my rock," Nanci told members of the Relay For Life committee last Thursday.
When she was too weak to walk, friends from work formed a Relay For Life team, and walked for her.
Now Nanci continues in her 15th year as an employee at General Electric in Burlington, Iowa.
After three years, doctors gave her and Brian the go-ahead, and they were blessed with their second child, Johanna.
The neat thing through it all, is her young son never saw her hair loss or illness, he just saw her as mom. The six months of Chemo was harder and harder to go through, but, Nanci met so many upbeat people, she wanted to be positive for fear she would bring someone else down.
When it was finally over, Nanci said she had an uncontrollable giggle. "I made a deal with God to give me the strength to see me through and I would do what he asked of me."
The first thing Nanci did through her tears, was thank her congregation of the Biggsville Presbyterian Church for their prayers and support. She also started the "Hat Club" to helps others who were losing their hair.
She also continues to support Relay for Life walking for a Burlington Policeman who died of a Brain Tumor at age 37. His wife and he were her childhood friends.
Andrew is now 6 and Johanna is 18 months and she is able to be their mom, because she did a self-breast exam and then took action. She supports Relay for Life and the ASC because they are making remarkable strides. She will be walking July 23rd-24th. She hopes you will be there too.