SHERMAN, Texas (KXII) – As Breast Cancer Awareness Month comes to a close, a local survivor has a simple message: don’t skip your mammogram. She says one appointment is the reason she’s alive today.
When patients see Natalie Carpenter coming with a needle, they aren’t always happy.
“They’re like ugh, I’m like, It’s just a needle. I’m not like removing a body part,” said Carpenter.
Natalie has been a phlebotomist for seven years, following in her mother’s footsteps. She had no family history of cancer, so she was shocked when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 49.
“All I knew in my head was what I’ve seen on TV or movies, and that’s pretty scary,” Carpenter said. “I thought I was going to be on death’s door. It was terrifying.”
“I called my mom, my primary care doctor works here, she actually left clinic and came down with the biopsy results ,and told me that it was cancer. I continued to work,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter didn’t just work through the diagnosis. She worked through six months of chemo and thirty rounds of radiation, all due to a tumor less than a centimeter in size, and cancer in her lymph nodes too.
“I worked full-time. Everybody here was amazing,” said Carpenter. “The support was unbelievable, and then radiation, everyday I would come to work, leave work, drive to Denison, have them radiate me for like five minutes and come back to work.”
Because Natalie provides the insurance for her family, she felt she had no choice but to keep showing up, even on her hardest days.
“That was one of my fears when they told me chemo. ‘Oh my God how am I going to work? How am I going to have insurance to treat this?’. It was a lot,” Carpenter said.
The cancer took its emotional and physical toll-
“I did it all. Lost all the hair. Eyebrows, eyelashes even inside your nose. Hair you don’t even think about,” said Carpenter. “I meant at Halloween I was completely bald like a cue ball. I told my husband ‘I could be Uncle Fester for Halloween.’ He told me babe don’t talk about yourself like that, but I’m like I have to or I’m going to cry.”
That positive attitude stayed with her. Today, Natalie is cancer-free.
“I’m more tired than I was before,” said Carpenter. “Everybody’s journey is different.”
“I just kicked its butt! I kicked cancer’s butt,” Carpenter said.
She credits her family and coworkers for helping her win the fight, but she says the real hero was the routine screening that caught the cancer early.
“Mammograms saved my life!” Carpenter said. “Yeah I knew they were important before, but now I’m just like, ‘Get a mammogram! Get a mammogram!’ They don’t hurt. They’re just a few minutes out of your life.”
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