Beech Tree News Network

In 2009, facebook was just becoming "the thing." The way to connect with the world, find people you haven't heard from or seen in years, even old high school buddies were all getting reacquainted. So Julie and her friends decided to jump on board and become " facebookers."  Little did she know, the impact that reconnecting with some of her high school girlfriends was about to have on her life.
While scrolling through and figuring out all about this facebook frenzie, she ran across a friend named Myra. And on her page, Julie noticed a thing called Myra's Army.  So not having a clue what that even meant, she just assumed well maybe it was that her husband was deployed and they were raising money to help her make ends meet or something along that line. She just honestly didn't know what to think of it. Julie asks another one of her girlfriends "what's up with Myra, why is there a page called Myra's Army." She got a shocker when she was told Myra has breast cancer; triple negative breast cancer at that (the deadliest/ worst kind of breast cancer). At the age of 30, only one year younger than Julie.
Julie reached out to her, after 20 years, by sending her a message on facebook. She wanted just to see if there was anything at all she could do to help. She didn't want her to feel like she was just being nosy, but wanted her to know she was concerned. They began chatting, and Julie asked her if she would mind telling her how she found it, how she knew to even go to the doctor. Because, Julie, like me, knows that most doctors don't push for a lady to have a  mammogram before they are 40 unless there is a reason , such as family history or issues with the breast.  Her friend told her, there was breast cancer in her family, but it was on her dad's side. But the way she discovered something wasn't right, was by doing a self-breast exam at home.
They began chatting about the self-breast exams and how so many women don't know how to do a proper self-breast exam (including Julie and myself). Even though Julie went for her yearly exams and everything was always fine, she had never actually done a self-exam, which is highly recommended for all women. So her friend started describing the proper technique for doing a self-exam, but Julie just brushed it off, and halfway listened because this was not going to happen to her. She wasn't ever going to have cancer, so it wasn't one of the things on her "to learn" list.
That same night, after the conversation ended with her friend, she began to shut the computer down and get ready for bed. During the process of this, a major pain hit Julie in her right breast like a hammer. She had to apply pressure to the side of her right breast to get relief from the pain. This was when Julie discovered a knot she had never felt before. Quickly the pain left, and she's never felt it again but even though they say cancer doesn't hurt; Julie said she knew right then, it was cancer, right that moment, she just knew. Even though at that time, there was no one else in her family with cancer, she knew she'd be the first. She feels the pain hit so hard and quick because it was God telling her she had to get this taken care of quickly, that it wasn't good. It was labor day weekend, the guys of the house had gone hunting, and Julie was there by herself, and the wait was on. There was nothing to do at this point except wait, worry and pray.

Later that night when Dan and the boys returned from their hunting trip, he knew something bad was wrong. As Julie was telling him about the whole scenario that had taken place earlier that night and what her gut feeling was, Dan, could tell that Julie was fearful of the worst. With her voice quivering and the tears in her eyes, he knew that this was very serious and that his wife was not going to feel relief until she had an answer. After listening, Dan told her in a reassuring voice that  "you're going to be fine."  Cancer doesn't just affect the person that is carrying it; it affects everyone in their family.
So, finally, Tuesday arrived, and Julie was on the phone first thing that morning to make an appointment with her doctor. She was able to get in that day, and the doctor didn't seem real concerned about the events that had unfolded over the holiday but sent her to Western Ky Diagnostic for a mammogram to be on the safe side and put away any fears and worries Julie had. That afternoon,  she had the mammogram. On Thursday of the same week, Julie's OB called and said "we need you to come in, we need to do a biopsy, it does look suspicious, " and he stressed the urgency of it needing it to be done that afternoon. At this time, Julie's fears became even more real and it looked like was about to get ugly.
Julie immediately called her parents, and they came down to be with her for the biopsy, which was performed that very afternoon. They did what is called a core biopsy. Of course, never have been through this, I wasn't sure what a "core" biopsy was. Julie described it as a vacuum. So basically they sucked the tissue out of her breast that was questionable ( I am thankful the awesome people I do interviews with put things on levels I can understand). The doctor performing the biopsy, looked at Julie, with tears in her eyes, and her exact words were "I'm going to be praying for you."  So, at that point, no words were needed, Julie knew, the disease that was "never going to happen to her," had viciously attacked her.
When Julie's OB called the next day, Friday, she asked Julie to come on into the office, that she needed to talk to her. It doesn't take much to know when the doctor calls and says "we need you to come in" it usually isn't to share the good news.  This played out to be true in Julie's case as well.  She most definitely had cancer. Her diagnosis was given to her on September 16, 2009.
At this point, she was referred to a surgeon. He informed Julie that yes there were two lumps; one was an in Situ tumor, meaning it was in its original place, has not spread into the surrounding breast tissue. He then proceeded to tell her the second lump was nothing, no cancer involved in that one; he was positive. His treatment suggestion was to have a lumpectomy, do some radiation and all would be good, it would be over, life would go on as normal.
As much as Julie wanted to believe it was going to be this easy, this cut and dry, her gut was telling her "Nope" this is not right, he is missing something. Her mother had the same gut feeling that the doctor was missing something and both were very uncomfortable about the whole diagnosis and treatment plan. They prayed about it all the way home.  After talking it over with Dan later that evening, he also agreed his gut was telling him this just wasn't right, that there was more to the story and something was being missed. The trio decided it was time to move on to another plan to get this terrifying disease removed from her body.
Julie kind of went into what I felt was survival mode, almost a panic mode it sounded like at this point. She called her OB and described the scenario to her and told her she just wasn't comfortable with the whole plan the surgeon had put together. The doctor said she understood that she would want a second opinion and had recommended she go to the University of Louisville for further evaluation. But Julie's gut told her that wasn't the right move either. At this point, Julie knew she had to just breath! Just take a step back, regroup, get some other folks involved and find where she needed to be to get the proper care she needed and felt comfortable with.
Julie hadn't told her brothers yet about cancer. But she decided maybe it was time to talk to Jason (the middle brother) but not her older brother, Jeff, just yet. See Jeff is a football coach, it was football season, and you just don't disrupt football season, not even for cancer (obviously Julie's thoughts). She didn't want Jeff to be preoccupied while coaching, so she made Jason promise not to tell him at this time.
Between the time of Julie's prognosis, and now, she had connected with her best friend of 25 years that she hadn't spoken with since a week before high school graduation (thank you facebook). This friend worked at the University of Kentucky. After Julie shared her story with her, she began doing research for Julie and trying to come up with best options. Julie stated,  "UK is the leading school for cancer research in the United States."
Julie's brother Jason began his research by getting in touch with a girl he went to college with that was in the breast cancer field (selling equipment, bras and all things needed to make living comfortable after breast cancer).  She recommended to Jason that Julie go to the University of Kentucky for treatment.
Julie had not talked to Jason or her best friend since they had told her they were going to research options, but in the meantime, had been talking to her friend that she graduated with from Warren East. Ironically enough, she works at the University of Kentucky as well.
Within an hour, Julie received three emails, one from Jason, one from her best friend at UK and one from her friend from Warren East, and all three came back with the same doctor's name! Now if that doesn't show you how God works, nothing will. Now keep in mind, none of them had spoken to each other or even knew each was seeking information to help Julie. They didn't even know each other at all. Julie feels this was God's way of telling her University of Kentucky is where she needed to go for treatment to beat this horrifying disease.
The next day, Julie called to make an appointment with the doctor that all three people involved suggested. The bad news of all this; it was going to take three weeks for her to get in. She had had all the waiting she thought she could take, so she called her friend Brian and told him the situation and asked him if there was anything at all he could do to possibly pull some strings and get her in sooner. Hearing the worrying and anxiety in her voice, Brian put Julie on hold. He didn't tell her he'd call her back, or ask her to call back; he just told her to "hold on." Within a few minutes, Brian came back to the phone and said: "be here tomorrow at 3:00." Finally, things were going to start moving, and progress was going to be made.
The next day, Julie, her husband Dan and mother made the trip to University of Kentucky Hospital in Lexington, Ky. Upon arrival, the doctors recommended they do their scans and test and pretty much just start from scratch so they would know exactly what they were working with and the treatment plan they would need to prepare for Julie. She had two radiologists, one resident, and one second-year med student. She describes them as absolutely amazing people; patient, kind, caring and willing to listen to her every concern. All of them agreed on the fact that in all honestly, Julie never should have found the lump until it was in stage 3. And to make things even crazier, the knot the Bowling Green doctor said "absolutely was not cancer," was indeed the one with the worst cancer, it was already stage 1. There was only 10 cm between the two tumors. If she hadn't found them, they would mastitis She often wonders "what if" she had followed the other doctor's prognosis? What if she hadn't insisted on a second opinion, would she be here today? Julie's breast cancer was triple positive, which means it was estrogen fed, progesterone fed and HER2+. In other words, the cancer was feeding off of everything produced in her body.
When Julie met with the surgical oncologist, she informed her that the right breast needed to be removed, there was no saving it. Julie then told her that "if you're going to take one, you're going to take both." The surgeon told her that there was a 96% chance that cancer won't come back, but if even one little cell is left, that it can multiply. So at that point, she talked to Dan about it, and they agreed; both breasts would be removed. Julie had full support from Dan through all of this. Even when she became bald, Dan told her she was the hottest bald women he'd ever seen.
The oncologist told Julie that she was going to have to have chemo after the surgery. She thought she was mentally prepared for this until she heard the words. She was so hoping she could dodge this horrible part of all this, but it wasn't possible. Chemo was going to have to happen to rid the evil. On October 7, 2009, at St. Joe Hospital in Lexington, Julie went under the knife and had both breasts removed, her life was never going to be the same from this point on.
Even though she was a candidate for immediate reconstruction, she had been left with zero natural breast tissue because they had to go all the way to the chest wall to remove the cancer. The reconstructive process that she described to me was very fascinating. Julie went into great detail to explain the procedure to me, and I was blown away. It involved ports, syringes, saline and lots of patience. Surprisingly Julie has a great sense of humor concerning her breast reconstruction. If you want to hear a good boob joke, ask Julie.
On November 11, Julie started the dreaded chemo treatments. Everything was going well, except her hair, yeah, the hair was going...away... but Dan didn't mind, he just rubbed her pretty bald head and loved her through it. He just kept reassuring her that she was still the most beautiful woman he knows. Dan's total support and the fact that he never made her feel less of a woman, and not pretty, is what made this process bearable.
Around the time of her 6th chemo treatment, brace yourself....Julie gets pregnant!!! Julie was going in for pre-op for her final reconstruction, and by law, they have to do a pregnancy test. Even though she was supposed to be infertile, one of the chemo drugs that she had to take (tamoxifen), was introduced back in the 60's as a fertility drug. Julie said, "that would have been some good information to have.". While she was doing the pregnancy test, in the back of her mind, she said she kept telling herself "I'm pregnant," but there was no way possible this could happen.
While driving on the Western Kentucky Parkway, Reese in the back seat asleep, she receives a phone call from her plastic surgeon's office. She said, "Julie are you sitting down?" Julie just chuckles "I'm driving." She said "You're Pregnant" And Julie's response was "You're Crazy"!!  Julie immediately calls her mom (this part cracks me up), she said: "mom, I'm pregnant." Her mom says "How'd that happen?" Julie, without missing a beat, says "well Mom, you have three kids, you know how that happened."
Julie proceeded to call her OBGYN and inform him of the shocking information she had been given. Not wanting her to get too excited, he prepared her for the worst by telling her "you will probably miscarry." Her body had been through a lot and had received a lot of poison from all the chemo drugs. So Julie was trying to prepare herself for the worst, even though inside, she was getting excited just thinking about the possibility of another child.
Braced and ready to hear the news from her oncologist, she called her to see what the next step was, now that things had changed completely. The oncologist was very calm and told Julie "it's ok, I've treated many women that have become pregnant during treatment and many that were pregnant when they began treatment." In other words, this wasn't her first rodeo, and she knew it was going to be a miracle baby, but also knew it was not impossible. Julie was instructed to stop the Herceptin immediately. Reconstruction was put on hold, and an ultrasound was scheduled. Well, the news from the ultrasound was good, the baby was found but the surprise was..there wasn't just one baby, there were TWO! Yes, Julie and Dan were expecting twins. She was about eight weeks along at this point. Baby B had a nice strong heartbeat, but, unfortunately, Baby A, had not developed a heartbeat yet. But the doctors told them, that this is normal for them not to have heart beats at the same time.
After the initial shock, they decided this was possibly the light at the end of a very long dark tunnel. Even though in the back of her mind, she was scared to death to tell anyone, she and Dan just wanted to share some happy news with their friends and family for a change. But at 11 weeks, while out to dinner with Dan, Julie started cramping. She knew it wasn't good and called the doctor and they did another ultrasound, and sure enough, Baby A wasn't forming, there still wasn't a heartbeat. They call this a vanishing twin. The sac was growing, but the baby was not. So they were preparing themselves to deal with the loss of one of their babies. On a good note, everything about Baby B was looking awesome. Heartbeat was amazing, it was growing, and they were ready to tell everyone now. They were expecting a miracle baby. Let the shopping begin for baby supplies and start picking out names.
Since the babies were in two different sacs, they knew they were fraternal. Julie said in most cases like this; it's the boy that doesn't develop, so they were pretty sure, Baby B was a girl. Even the doctors were pretty convincing it was a girl by the heartbeat and such. So they picked out a little girls name. Her name would be Paisley Ann Hudnall. But more devastation was to come.
At week 15, sure enough, the devastation hit. Julie began to bleed and cramp. Intense pain described as a small labor pain. She called Dan at work and sadly informed him, she was pretty sure she was miscarrying. Sure enough, after arriving at the doctor, there was no heartbeat for Baby B. I can't imagine the sadness that had to overcome both of them, in what was supposed to be the "happy" in all this storm they had already endured with the cancer.
The doctors were pretty sure Julie's body would take care of the miscarriage by itself, but because she was prone to infection due to the cancer, her oncologist suggests that she have a DNC as opposed to letting her body take care of it naturally. Though he knew this wasn't something Julie wanted to do because now that she knew she was fertile, this could complicate her getting pregnant again. After much discussion, the DNC was performed. Like anything else needed to go wrong, her uterus collapsed during the procedure. How much more should one lady have to endure? They tacked her uterus back into place and encouraged her to have a hysterectomy performed. This was not something Julie wanted to hear either. But after meeting with her doctor in Bowling Green and finding out her ovaries were full of cysts, a big decision was having to be made again.  At 33 years of age, Julie had to have a complete hysterectomy. So for the second time, Julie went through menopause; the first time during chemo and then now after her hysterectomy. The option for hormones was not available to her because both her tumors were hormone fed. After healing from the hysterectomy, Julie returned to complete her reconstruction of her breast.
At this point, Julie was understandably an emotional wreck. Having had rods in her back due to blown disk earlier in life, cancer, breast reconstruction, miscarriages, hysterectomy, how could you not be. During the surgery to remove breast tissue, they also had to remove five lymnods, which in turn, caused her to have lymphodema. As a result of the chemotherapy, Julie developed neuropathy causing her right hand to be of little use to her. It was also causing major pain along with, carpel tunnel. At this point, Julie stated that she started to self-medicate (she took more medicine than what was prescribed) in an attempt to ease the pain. This was successful for about 30 minutes because she felt no pain, no emotion, she didn't have cancer, and she wasn't recovering from cancer. She was in her own little world.
During her doctor visits, she would be prescribed muscle relaxers as well, because the implants are under the muscle. Anytime that she would become tense, the muscle would spasm and would cause great pain. Julie stated that she was in a cloud for about six months, just floating around and existing. She was on an emotional roller coaster, and she feels like this was caused by a hormone imbalance. So instead of dealing with the situation, Julie would take another pain pill and go lay down. She was in pain, both physically and emotionally. Even though she was taking all this medication, the pain would just worsen, which caused her to take more and more pills to ease the pain.
As is often the case when dealing with this type of pain medication, it became a never-ending cycle. After a while, Dan started noticing that Julie was not herself. He noticed major behavioral changes, strange impulses, and that something was just not right about her. He confronted her about it. Julie said she was not offended by it, and she agreed "yes, I do take a lot of medicine." But she also let Dan know that he did not understand the pain that she was experiencing.  He was not with her through a lot of this, such as when she was puking her guts out at her mother's. He was here working. She started to resent him then, not during the process of all she'd been through, but approximately two years into it.  She said to Dan "you didn't see anything. You saw me when I was feeling better; you didn't see me at my worse. You didn't see me when I couldn't lift a pen to sign myself in at the doctor office. You didn't see me when I couldn't put my clothes on due to exhaustion. My mom saw that. Don't tell me not to take a pill to feel better."
Even though Dan was confronting her with this issue, Julie said he was still very patient with her. He said he understood that "you've been through hell and back and that you're ok, you're good." Julie said she thought she was okay because she felt that she had it under control. But then again, when she ran out of pills, she would try to cut herself off cold turkey, and that was the worst possible thing she could do. She didn't attempt to wean herself off the pills. When she tried to go cold turkey, she would get jittery, shaky, nauseated and miserable. She was mad at the world! She hated the world; she hated life!
To just absolutely put the topping on the cake, on the 5th anniversary of her breast cancer diagnosis, Julie was told that her mother had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. This was just more than Julie could deal with, and it sent her into a crazy tailspin of depression.
Once Julie reached this point, she decided life here on earth just wasn't worth living. She decided her family would be better off without her. So, the worst happened; Dan came home and found an empty prescription bottle and discovered his wife had overdosed on pain pills in an attempt to end her life. Terrified, he and her friend Julie, took her to the emergency room. From here, she entered Lifeskills to detox her body from the poison and pills. It was such a scary time for her. Even though she knew she needed to be there, she begged Dan and her mother to come get her.  As much as it killing them on the inside, they wouldn't go because they knew she had to have this time to heal herself. She remained in there for four days. She said that this is where her anger with her husband stopped. She realized that Dan loved her and that he was really in tune with what she was going through. He knew how bad she was hurting, both mentally and physically. Going through an ordeal such as this would be tough on any relationship. Julie and Dan's marriage suffered severely for about three years.
Julie came out of rehab/detox and was off the pain pills for the most part. Eventually, she had to occasionally take the pain medication. But the blessing is that this time, she realized what was happening and got it under control herself. She began doing research and learning how to deal with the pain instead of just putting a band aide on it and destroying herself. She learned that exercise, meditation and lots of walks helped her realize that she didn't need pills to get through life.
At this point in our conversation, I brought up the fact that Julie had never had a moment to process any of this ordeal. From the time of the original diagnosis of the breast cancer to a point, two years later, she had not had time to grieve. It had finally come to a boiling over point. I ask her during all of this, was she ever mad at God, without hesitation she responded.."ohhhh daily." She told God she was done with him. He had devastated her. Some of the questions that went through her mind were "why did all of this have to happen to me?" "Why not just a little, instead of a bucket full." "Why did you tear me down?"
2016 was a huge turning point in Julie's life. This was the year she began to realize what her purpose was here on this earth. It was the one year anniversary of her mom's diagnosis. Her mother had been through every step of Julie's breast cancer with her. Therefore, when her mother was diagnosed, she had a heads up on how to handle her cancer. Julie felt that her mother handled her cancer so much better than Julie had hers. She was much better educated because of Julie's ordeal. Julie told me her mother looked absolutely amazing and handled her cancer with grace. Feeling like God put her through this to prepare her mother for what she was going to have to go through, is what Julie feels like was her purpose in this life.
Julie hated the word pink for years; it made her nauseous just to hear that four letter word. She didn't want any pink around her anywhere. Many of her friends would buy her things with the breast cancer ribbon on them and encouraged her to wear pink, and she wanted absolutely nothing to do with the color pink. But after she discovered what her purpose was, she was able to begin speaking to other cancer patients and realize through breast cancer; she had formed lifelong friendships and learned to accept love and offerings from friends.  She even went to school to learn how to do mastectomy fittings for women. This was a little more than Julie could deal with because losing patients, was just too depressing.
This summer, Julie has finally realized, God was NOT out to get her. She told me "I just woke up one morning and thought, God, allowed me to go through cancer to get where I am today." There are still days and times that Julie said Satan works on her telling her "look what God did to you." But she knows her God is the winner in this. He took her down to the darkest of depths to build her up to praise him in the bad times as well as the good.
Julie told me two years ago; she wouldn't have been able to share this amazing story with me. She hated the world, she hated pink, and she was at the lowest time of her life. But layer by layer, he continues to rebuild her. She's not there yet she said, but who is? We are all a work in progress. But praise God she said, "I'm at peace with God and myself."

The last thing we want to share is Julie's tattoo and what it means to her. You will see a photo of it attached. Below is how she explained the meaning to me:
"My mantra was what my "fighting with Jules" shirts were about. Growing up, my dad had this acronym of PR1DE. Notice it has no "I." You take yourself out of the center of any and everything and put "1" in the middle. The P stands for positive attitude. The R is responsibility. "1" is God and whatever goal you're going for. Mine was beating cancer. D is dedication. E is enthusiasm. This has followed me all of my life but especially when fighting the fight that I did. I got it tattoed on my wrist so I would never forget to do all of those things every day.
I have known Julie for just awhile through church. I am so appreciative that she welcomed me into her home and shared this amazing story with me. It just proves once again; you just don't know what someone has been through. Everyone has a story, Julie's is one of the amazing ones that needed to be heard. Julie, you are one amazing, strong woman and this story will touch so many lives. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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About Debby:
In 2014, I felt a calling from God to change the course of my photography. Here is a little info on Today's Miracle Photography:

Memories last forever; I have a deep passion for photography and writing, and have had for many years. I wanted to tie these two together and use my passion for the glory of God. When our granddaughter Lexi (not by blood) was born, and shortly passed, I felt God wanted me to share her story, from that point on, I've felt that calling. To reach out to people that have had miracles performed in their lives, to bring awareness to terminally ill people, people that have lost loved ones, people that struggle with addictions, just various aspects of life that God works miracles in.
God works miracles everyday, share yours with me and lets share it with the world. I believe these people I photo shoot and write about need prayer and the best way to start a prayer chain and praise God, is with a big group of people that will share all over the world. No miracle is to great or small to praise God for.

I have a page on Facebook named Today's Miracle Photography, please follow me there to capture these incredible people's story's and photos as well.

Debby Lanham