Just a year into retirement, Brenda Edwards, former RCPS director of career technology and executive director of the Kimberley Chance Atkins Foundation, had a new project to focus on: battling breast cancer. In 2007, her doctor discovered the stage two tumor in her left breast during a routine mammogram.
"I got sick, lost my hair, got a wig, went through chemo and radiation and got the pink T-shirt, and now I’m fine," said Edwards, with the matter-of-fact style and practicality with which she approaches all life’s challenges.
Edwards also received an overwhelming amount of support that carried her through the experience. In addition to an army of friends and connections with other survivors, her family was a mainstay during her disease.
"My family was fantastic. My girls and husband were here all the time reassuring me. It is a battle. Experiencing the illness, the sickness with the chemo and the exhaustion from radiation, while trying to keep your daily activities going is tough," she said. Her normal routine was important to Edwards. All through the process, lumpectomy, eight chemotherapy sessions and 36 radiation treatments, she rarely missed choir practice or Sunday morning worship at Crossroads UMC.
"One of the biggest things I’m appreciative of was that I didn’t have to leave Rockdale County to get wonderful medical advice and care," she said. She has since referred others to her oncologist, Dr. Richard Carter, who gave her a thorough education on the disease and what to expect. "He was such a teacher…phenomenal," she said. Edwards still has the paper sheet used to cover exam tables that he mapped out her disease and course of treatment on, complete with drawings and detailed explanations.
Along with loaning fellow breast cancer patients hats from her collection, she said she, "lets them know what they’re going to have to go through to get to the other side of the hurdle." She gives them as detailed information as possible because that’s what helped her when she was in the throes of the disease.
In February, Edwards will begin her fourth year of the five year maintenance drug. She still gets anxious during her six month check-ups, experiencing "white coat syndrome" — her blood pressure skyrockets when she goes to the doctor’s office.
Though Edwards was involved in the KCAF before she was diagnosed and worked with Atkins at Memorial Middle School earlier in her career, personal experience with breast cancer has added new dimension to her role with the foundation. She will speak to a church group and the Conyers Civic League before heading to Charleston with her husband and daughter for the Komen Lowcountry Race for the Cure this weekend.
Edwards said she is humbled by the community’s response to the foundation whose ultimate goal is raising money for a mobile mammography unit as well as awareness and education. After taking in nearly $40,000 at their annual signature tennis tournament, KCAF has distributed 20 "pigs with a purpose" — decorative piggy banks — at hair salons in Conyers and surrounding towns to collect funds. Other groups have made donations from their projects, including a firefighter who designed a T-shirt whose proceeds go towards their cause. Foundation members will be at the Olde Town Fall Festival Oct. 23 handing out pink balloons and selling T-shirts and wristbands.
"People are coming out to support us and do something for the community, especially those who have been breast cancer victims and survivors. They know what a gift that next birthday is. We want other people to be able to experience that gift too," she said.
