Jul. 20--DECATUR -- Radine Cox's story is hers alone, but in a way, the 58-year-old Decatur woman's tale echoes the experiences of countless others.
It started with a nagging ache. Cox awoke one day with a deep pain in her chest. She thought it could be a heart problem, bronchitis or pleurisy and ended up in the intensive care unit at Decatur Memorial Hospital. There, a chest X-ray and a CT scan revealed a mass in her left lung.
"I didn't know it at the time, but I was having shortness of breath like going up steps, and I was working out at Curves at the time," Cox said. " -- I was probably in better physical shape right then than I'd ever been."
She had blamed the breathlessness on being a few pounds overweight. But the culprit turned out to be something far more serious -- stage IIIB non-small cell lung cancer.
"The first thing I thought is, 'What is my family going to go through?' " Cox remembered.
After enduring chemotherapy and radiation treatments in an effort to shrink the tumor to an operable size, Cox went through surgery in which doctors cut out a substantial portion of her left lung. She has been cancer-free for a little more than three years.
"I still feel like I probably had a miracle," Cox said.
She now lives with breathing difficulties and neuropathy and concentration problems resulting from chemotherapy.
"My faith has deepened, I know that," Cox said. "My life has totally changed because I can't work. I have physical limitations because I basically have been left with a crippled lung."
Cox quit her 20-year smoking habit seven years before her cancer appeared. She was an avid, vocal proponent of the Smoke-Free Illinois Act and is a regular at local health fairs. She keeps busy volunteering for the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association and other groups. Recently, she was selected for a special task.
"I am just now getting my life back together and concentrating on things that I want to do, and I've learned that I love to help other people," Cox said. "And even though I'm limited physically, there's still a lot of things I can do, and I have done."
She will be one of 1,000 delegates at the Lance Armstrong Foundation's 2008 LIVESTRONG Summit, which runs Thursday through Sunday at Ohio State University in Columbus. Cox has been a fan of Armstrong since her stepdaughter, Penny Feddick, 40 was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma about 10 years ago and introduced her to the athlete's story of survival. Feddick encouraged her stepmother to apply for a delegate spot.
Cox is often seen sporting her bright yellow LIVESTRONG T-shirt and bracelet. And she keeps the free cancer survivorship binder she got through the foundation as a resource and reminder of her journey.
She sought to connect with others in the local Facing Cancer Together support group. When she started, the sessions were being led by current Education Network to Advance Cancer Clinical Trials grant coordinator Abbey Britton.
Britton said she isn't sure if Cox would remember her from her early days in the group, but her name is one she'll never forget.
"I saw her basically just kind of tell herself, 'This is something I'm going to beat,' " Britton said.
She remembered Cox as someone who "kind of took in her diagnosis internally and just said to everyone, to herself and to those around her, 'This is not going to take me down. This is only going to make me stronger.' "
Britton said she could see Cox's determination to beat her cancer shining through the toll it took on her body. Despite those effects and losing the love of her life, her husband, Mike Cox, to ALS during the course of her own illness, Cox emerged a stronger woman.
Soon, she became a leader, guiding others who were beginning their own journeys with cancer. Cox's Sunday school teacher asked the class to pray for his sister who was battling cancer. A short time later, DMH Cancer Care Institute coordinator Nikki Damery asked Cox to mentor a woman newly diagnosed with lung cancer. The woman for whom Cox had been praying for weeks turned out to be the same one she began counseling. And she saw her through tears and treatments and into remission.
"Her faith is what helped her get through this, and it makes her who she is," Damery said of Cox.
Faith, too, was what guided Damery during her own husband's cancer of the appendix a little more than a year ago.
"I totally have a different perspective on life and on cancer patients," she said.
The couple went through the shock and denial of the diagnosis, and Kerby went through surgery and six months of chemotherapy. During that time, a friend gave them the Lance Armstrong Foundation's book "Live Strong: Inspirational Stories from Cancer Survivors -- from Diagnosis to Treatment and Beyond."
"After he got done reading Lance's story -- Kerby was just determined to fight it more than ever," Damery said.
Britton gave him a yellow LIVESTRONG bracelet. He doesn't take it off.
Although she felt a sense of compassion in her work before, Damery said Kerby's cancer gave her a new intensity and the ability to lead support groups with greater empathy.
"It told me life is precious -- " Damery said of her husband's battle.
The lives of those who fight, treat and advocate for causes related to cancer often intersect. They are bound by strength and resolve unknown to those who do not share their struggle. Cox, Britton and Damery are no exception.
Damery and Britton also plan to attend the LIVESTRONG Summit, and Kerby will be there for the opening night. Britton went to the inaugural summit in Austin, Texas, in 2006. This year, she invited Damery to go along.
All three women want to work toward better grassroots and community involvement, cancer education and advocacy and more local survivorship services.
Cox said she hopes to learn how to become a stronger advocate and organize a local event similar to Feddick's 10-mile group bike ride in Tucson, which raised more than $5,000 for Armstrong's foundation. But the crux of Cox's mission is raising awareness of cancer's effects on the lives of those it touches.
"I could get really down if I wasn't busy," she said. "I just feel like I am really finding out what I should have been doing all these years."
Annie Getsinger can be reached at agetsinger@herald-review.com or 421-6968.
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