Margie Campbell is a true survivor.
A Texas native, Margie was born in Dallas and came to the Texarkana area in 2000. She grew up in the foster care system as a child and moved a lot. However, she has always claimed Texarkana as her home.
Margie has been active in the medical field for 29 years. Her first experience was as a candy striper at Wadley Regional Medical Center when she was 16 years old.
"My foster mom told me that I needed to volunteer somewhere in town, so she got me signed at the hospital," Margie said.
She graduated high school in Garland, Texas, and eventually met her husband, Alan, in Lufkin, Texas. In 1995, they moved to Dallas where she became a certified nurse aid and then a medication aide.
She worked while taking care of their five children and attending nursing school. In 1996, she and Alan sought to have another baby. They had some issues in the beginning, which ultimately led Margie to go see her gynecologist.
The labs from that appointment had come back abnormal. Margie went in for another appointment and sonogram, where she saw a little baby starting to grow.
"I was shocked, and so happy," Margie said. But that was not the only news she received that day. She also was diagnosed with uterine cancer.
"My physician told me that I had to choose between my baby or my life. I just could not do that," she said. "I believed that God would not have given me this baby just to take it away from me."
At Baylor Health Care System in Dallas, they heard encouraging news.
"They told me that they see pregnant women with cancer all the time," Margie said. "They said it like it was no big deal - and there I was feeling so scared."
Their daughter, Samantha Brianne Lee Campbell, was born September 3, 1997. The physician started Margie's chemotherapy the day after she gave birth.
"I really wanted to have more kids, but it wasn't in the picture," Margie said. In April 1998, she had a hysterectomy. "Our daughter is truly a miracle baby."
Margie's scans and tests in the years to follow were all within normal limits. In 2002 she graduated from the nursing program at Texarkana College and until 2011 she was cancer-free. On Nov. 11, 2011, she received a follow-up phone call from her physician regarding her last checkup. She had invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast. Margie could not believe it. She had grown accustomed to good news, but there she was on the same road that she traveled in 1997.
She saw a physician in Little Rock for a surgery consultation. He called back four days later ready to schedule her surgery.
"It was all so rushed and that was a very scary time for me, but the doctor just wanted to get this done as quickly as possible since I'd already met my insurance deductible," Margie said.
She went in for a mastectomy, the surgical removal of the breast, in December 2011. She knew of all the risks including the possibility that it could go from removing one breast to removing two.
"We had discussed the possibility of a bilateral mastectomy and I signed the consents, but I kept telling myself that it wasn't going to go to that," she said. "But when I woke up without any breast at all, I felt horrible."
Margie knew recovery would be difficult because she'd had a similar experienced in the past. Still, she did not foresee the emotional toll it would take on the way she viewed herself.
"I didn't feel like I was a woman," she said. "I had already felt like I had lost one part of me when I had a hysterectomy, then I lost my breasts too."
When Margie started to lose her hair, she was devastated. "I just knew that people could see me, and they would know," she said.
One day at work, her hair began falling in dramatic fashion. By the time she got home she had bald spots all over her head. She called her husband because she just didn't know what to do. She got in the shower and her hair continued to fall out in large clumps.
When Alan got home he told Margie that he could help her fix things. He shaved Margie's head.
"After he shaved my head, I just stood in my closet with no breasts, no hair, and I just felt like I was no longer a woman," she said. When Alan joined Margie in their closet, she was shocked by what she saw. He, too, had shaved his head. "I just cried. He took a selfie of us standing there with bald heads. I had no eyelashes, and no eyebrows, but he loved me still."
Margie went on to have breast reconstruction to not only get breasts again, but to regain her sense of self-worth. That task, however, came with a new set of challenges and setbacks. She suffered through multiples infections, treatments and procedures. Then she got another cancer diagnosis. Her breast cancer tissues had spread to two places in her spine. She had surgery again on her spine. In fact, since her breast cancer diagnosis Margie has had 19 surgeries.
Margie credits her supportive family and her faith in God as the reasons she has gotten so far. She continues to have a positive outlook on life.
"Having someone take care of me during all this time was hard. Having my family help with toileting, showering and the drains from my wounds was so humiliating, but it was also humbling," she said. "My brain felt so much stronger than my body did, and I am so grateful that my family was there to help me."
Margie continues to monitor her health with doctor's appointments and scans.
"They are watching a spot on my lungs right now," she said.
She finds the strength to care for her grandmother, work full-time, maintain a full schedule at school and love with all her heart.
"I love my husband, my six children, my three beautiful daughters-in-law, and one fantastic son-in-law," she said. "I have 13 grands and two on the way. God is good and I am happy to be able to enjoy the life he has given me." n