Beating the odds

Published 11:54 am Tuesday, October 15, 2013

It’s a love story and a survival story all wrapped up in one.

For more than a year, Teri Williams fought to rid her body of stage three breast cancer. That included a double mastectomy, radiation and chemotherapy.

And she didn’t face it alone – her husband Jay Fowler was by her side every step of the way.

“Having a partner to share the journey with you is the key to surviving,” she said.“I fell in love with my husband all over again. There is something between us that we didn’t have before.”

Williams’ cancer has been in remission for six years, but the emotions – triumph, sadness, gratitude, peace –  are still fresh. The greatest lesson she learned was to spend more time in the garden and on the sailboat with her husband.

“People came out of the woodwork to help and it was really hard for me to accept that,” she said. “You don’t realize how many people care when you are just walking around healthy.”

One day a huge group of friends came over and cleaned up her garden, readying it for the coming spring.

“To sit on the couch and watch everyone else working – the universe was teaching me something: how to accept help,” Williams said. “I was a workaholic.”

Earth-shattering news

Prior to her diagnosis, Williams had mammograms every year and they never detected anything amiss. It wasn’t until she had a bruise-like pain on her right side that she realized something was wrong. An ultrasound discovered a stage three, lobular tumor deep inside her breast.

“I was shocked,” she said. “We don’t have cancer in our family. We die of old age and orneriness.”

Her medical team at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance laid out the game plan: a mastectomy followed by chemotherapy and radiation.

The night before her first surgery, the couple had pedicures, and then Williams danced in a red bra to jazz piano in Daniel’s Broiler restaurant.

“It was a farewell to my boob,” she said.

Williams’ right breast and all of the surrounding lymph nodes were taken out first. She had chemo every week for six months and then they moved to downtown Seattle for eight weeks, where she underwent radiation every day. Somewhere during all this her breasts became Betty and Wilma.

“Betty went first,” she said. “I chose not to wear a prosthetic. I decided ‘this is what cancer looks like.’ It made some people uncomfortable, but I did not have time for that. Jay and I were on a journey that took all of our attention.”

During their stay in the city, the SCCA gave them tickets to sports events, art museums and tours. They walked all over Seattle. Williams was on a mission for the best French dip sandwich she could lay her hands on.

“We experienced more in those eight weeks than most people experience in a lifetime,” she said. “I was never by myself, Jay was with me the entire time.”

The couple met 23 years ago when Williams was a single mom with three young boys. Fowler helped raise her children, and she says the boys have a deeper love for their step-dad after this experience.

“I saw a lot of very sick people during my treatments,” she said. “Some of them were alone, having to go back to work after their treatment, some of them didn’t know how they were going to pay. Between Jay, the community and OPALCO [Jay’s employer], we got through it. I feel very fortunate.”

Williams also credits Patty Resch, Sandi Friel and Tina Brown, who ran T Williams Realty and Permit Resources Land Use Consulting during her year of treatment and surgeries.

After her chemo and radiation were complete, Williams opted to remove her left breast because of the cancer risk.

She declined plastic surgery to rebuild the area – a decision that her husband supported – because she didn’t want to take the risk of an infection.

“Jay just wanted a healthy wife who didn’t have to go to through any more procedures,” she said.

Williams says she did not want to use up her “get out of jail free” card for cosmetic reasons – plus she’d had enough of hospital food to last a lifetime.