Roberta Wall R oberta Wall remembers exactly

where she was on Nov. 3 at 5:45 p.m. That’s the moment her life was forever changed and her worst fears were confirmed: A phone call from her surgeon, a diagnosis of breast cancer, and nothing would ever be the same.

It began, Mrs. Wall recalls, with her annual mammogram at Rollins Brook Community Hospital, a ritual for each of the past five years since she turned 40.

A week later, some unsettling news came in a letter from the radiologist. There was a “finding.” An additional mammogram was ordered.

“It happened before, and I wasn’t really concerned,” said Mrs. Wall, about having a questionable test result. “It happens to a lot of women, and then they receive an all-clear from their doctors. And that’s what I figured would happen to me, too.”

Maybe, she thought, it was just a shadow or something else -- something insignificant -- the radiologist saw.

She was given a more detailed mammogram, and the technician walked the films to the radiologist for a quick reading, asking her to wait to see if she should plan to see the radiologist again.

“She wasn’t gone long before she came back to tell me the radiologist wanted to talk to me. And that sent up a big red flag.

“He asked me if I was having pain, and I told him I wasn’t. I knew then it couldn’t be good. My first thought was that I hadn’t properly done my self exams in awhile, and that I wasn’t sure what to look for when I did them, and if I had, maybe the problem would have been found sooner.”

When the family physician, Dr. James Cain, was notified of the test results, Mrs. Wall was asked to undergo a breast exam at Cain’s office. “He did a thorough exam; the most thorough breast exam I have ever had. And he showed me how to examine myself. No one had ever showed me that before,” she said. “Not in all the years I had gone to gynecologists or OB/ GYNs. No one had ever shown me the right way to do it.”

Mrs. Wall said Cain found the lump in her right breast. “I felt it, and it was very small, but it was there.”

A core needle biopsy was scheduled and performed with local anesthesia a short time later.

She waited five days for the results. “On the day I was supposed to get the results, I was anxious to hear from the doctor’s office. I had called the office late in the afternoon, and my husband called them again at 4 p.m. But the nurse said the doctor would call me after he saw his patients.”

Mrs. Wall got the call that November evening. “The doctor said this was not the kind of news he liked to give over the phone, but I told him to just tell me. I knew then it wasn’t going to be good news. I got the strangest feeling. It was like the world had stopped around me,” she said. “I guess I should have been expecting it because there were so many red flags along the way.

“I held it together long enough to get the news because one of my sons was with me,” she said.

“After the doctor told me I had cancer, I went to my bedroom, and I just lost it. I screamed, ‘God, I don’t want it. Take it away.’”

The surgeon said Mrs. Wall was fortunate because she was otherwise healthy, the lump was small, and he believed they were able to catch it early.

After receiving the news, Mrs. Wall sent a text message to several friends. “People just started calling. My pastor’s wife called; my friends were calling. One friend told me that God won’t put on me more than I can handle. I know in my heart that’s true, and I’m running on faith now because I know this is out of my control.”

Mrs. Wall said she didn’t realize she had so many friends and people who love her, and she has been astounded at the help and support they have offered.

“But I’m still scared. It would be hard if I had to leave this world. There are so many unknowns when you find out you have cancer. It is just scary.”

She spent the first week following the diagnosis sorting through things in her mind. “I would go to bed at night and say, `Please God, don’t let me think about this tonight because I just want to be able to sleep.’ And sometimes I would wake up in the morning wondering if this is all a dream.

“It took me awhile to accept it,” she said. “I would say over and over to myself, `I’ve got cancer. I’ve got cancer.’

“People don’t know what to say to people with cancer. A few weeks ago I didn’t know what to say to them. But I welcome the questions now. It’s important people know what’s involved.

“I figured I wasn’t a candidate for cancer. I work out daily; I eat lots of fruits and vegetables. I don’t drink or smoke, and I don’t know anyone else in my family with breast cancer. Go figure. I have really led a boring life. I’m a statistic.”

Mrs. Wall recently was given the choice to have a lumpectomy to remove tissue and preserve the breast, or a mastectomy to completely remove the breast. She opted for the lumpectomy. “Twenty or 30 years ago they would just remove the whole breast. But the surgeon advised me that a mastectomy wasn’t necessary.

“For me, it was a personal choice. I seriously considered a mastectomy for a day, but I knew there was no guarantee that would stop the cancer.”

While undergoing the lumpectomy, Mrs. Wall also had a catheter implanted under the skin above her left breast for chemotherapy treatments that her Austin Cancer Center oncologist said she will undergo.

“He knew enough about the type of cancer I have [invasive ductal carcinoma -- the most common form of breast cancer] and that it responds to chemo,” she said.

Her oncologist said Mrs. Wall is lucky the cancer was caught early and she has a good prognosis. The physician believed the cancer to be stage 1 or 2, which is considered early detection, Mrs. Wall said.

The Lampasas woman said it is important to her to talk about her cancer with others. “I have come across women who have faced this, and I feel empowered by the knowledge I am receiving. And it helps to know what you are dealing with. I want everyone facing this to know they should seek out people who can share their knowledge with them and help them learn ways to cope with it.”

Mrs. Wall said she has gained inspiration from a friend diagnosed with stage 4 cancer who had a lumpectomy and wasn’t expecting a good outcome. “She has come back from this when she wasn’t supposed to, and she is doing well. If she can go through that and still have a smile on her face, and go out in public without her hair, she is an inspiration to me.”

Losing her hair is just one of the side effects Mrs. Wall knows she likely will face. “I just try to think about it in these terms: I have the most awful hair; it’s thin and fine, and what I eventually grow back has to be better than what I have now. If I go bald, do I get a good wig? Do I get something close to what I have now, or do I go wild and get the kind of hair I’ve always wanted but never had?”

Mrs. Wall said her husband of 18 years, Clifford, has been very supportive. “He is an absolute rock. We have cried together, and I know he has gone outside to talk to God and done some crying on his own.”

Wall works out of town for long stretches of time, and he is thankful his wife has numerous friends and family members she can rely on in his absence.

“I will be going through a lot of treatments while he’s gone, but my church family [Lampasas Baptist Church] and friends in the community are helping me, and they have offered to take me to appointments and treatments. Whatever I need, they are there. They have brought food, they send cards, and they are always phoning and checking on me. It has been a tremendous outpouring of love, and we are very grateful and very fortunate.”

Beginning this week, she is receiving the chemotherapy drugs Adriamycin (nicknamed “the red devil” by nurses, she said) and Cytoxan at St. David’s Hospital in Georgetown. They are administered through the catheter implanted in her chest at 21-day intervals for four total treatments.

That will be followed by Taxol each week for 12 weeks. “When I get the Taxol it will seem like a piece of cake compared to what my first chemo treatments will be,” she said.

Several anti-nausea medications also have been prescribed to combat the sickness that usually accompanies chemo treatments.

Radiation will be the next course of action.

In all, Mrs. Wall will undergo about six months of cancer treatments. “They treat it very aggressively to kill any possible cancer cells,” she said.

Mrs. Wall said she looks at things differently than she did before her cancer diagnosis. “I didn’t know I had this many friends and people who care. I appreciate things more now. Everything changes; your focus changes, and you think more about what is really important and what is just junk.

“I know where I’m going when I die, and my family can go on and be strong. We are going to get through this together and keep a positive outlook and weed out all the negativity. We don’t need that, and we don’t want to dwell on the negatives.”

Mrs. Wall knows many women have faced cancer before her and in much worse circumstances. “I’m not the only one to go through this, and there are women out there who have it so much worse than I do. I also know nowadays it’s not necessarily a death sentence. There have been so many advances in the fight against cancer.”

And she believes doctors need to be more proactive in directing women on doing self-breast exams. “I think so many women are not sure what they are looking for or what to do when they think they may have found something.”

Mrs. Wall said she was outraged after a recent government report stated women don’t need mammograms before age 50.

“Women need to be vigilant in their care. Imagine if I had waited until I was 50 to get a mammogram. Imagine if so many other women were to wait. That doesn’t make sense. A woman needs to have a mammogram every year beginning at age 40, and if they have a history of breast cancer, they need to start at 35. I wouldn’t listen to the government’s advice on this one. They are way off base,” she said.

“Mammograms may not be 100 percent accurate, but without the test where would I be now? Where would a lot of women be now?”

Prior to her lumpectomy and catheter installation at Rollins Brook, Mrs. Wall said she had prepared mentally for the surgery and the findings.

“My favorite Bible verse is 2 Corinthians 12:9. I printed that on a sticky note and stuck it to my breast, and when they got ready to do the surgery, the nurses opened my gown and found it there, and they laughed with me. You’ve got to find the humor in everything. You just have to.”

Looking toward the future, Mrs. Wall said her cancer diagnosis has convinced her how important it is to make each moment count. “I know this might seem ridiculous because millions of women have been cured, but it does make me look at things differently. Cancer is an ugly word. And you have to find ways to deal with it. I do that with my family, my church and my friends.”

Improvements in diagnosis and treatment have saved a lot of lives, she said. “And I have a lot to look forward to. I have my husband, my three boys and a grandbaby. I have lots of close and caring friends and family.

“I just have to get through these treatments. They are a short, minor inconvenience in my life, but then I will get my life back. God has been good to me,” she said. “I still feel very fortunate, and I believe there’s a future in my future. That’s what I’m reaching toward.”