Prior to becoming a cancer survivor last year, the 45-year-old wife and mother of two was content in her life as a Sidney businesswoman. The Hemingford native had moved to Sidney years ago to attend college, which led to a marriage with her husband, Jeffrey. That set her on course to raise her children, son Garrett and daughter Jamison, in her new hometown. For more than a half-decade, Kris has owned and operated the local Merle Norman salon.
But life changed for Kris in October 2010. One morning while readying herself for work, she conducted her monthly breast exam. She discovered a lump in her left breast.
Luckily Kris already had a scheduled appointment with Sidney Medical Associates. As it so happens, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and it’s the same month Kris schedules her mammography. The test revealed a second spot. An ultrasound confirmed it.
A Nov. 11 biopsy was scheduled in Scottsbluff to follow up on the results of the first two tests. The following day, doctors confirmed her diagnosis: mammary ductile carcinoma, the most common type of breast cancer that invades the milk ducts.
“I worked all day [Nov. 12] and went to the doctor at the end of the day,” Kris said. “I got the diagnosis and felt like I had been hit by a ton of bricks. Nothing prepares you to hear somebody say, ‘You have cancer.’”
To provide moral support during her diagnosis appointment, Jeffrey joined Kris in Scottsbluff. When the diagnosis was delivered, his arms became her shelter.
“He was the rock, the strength, because I just fell apart,” she said. “I couldn’t tell you anything else the doctor said after that.”
Feeding off her husband’s strength, Kris decided that same day to schedule surgical appointments to have the cancer removed. She met with two surgeons – a general surgeon who would remove her breast cancer and a plastic surgeon who would rebuild her breast. On Nov. 21, Kris was wheeled into surgery.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do until I was actually wheeled back to surgery,” Kris said. “[The surgeon] said, ‘OK, you have to make your decision now because I have to mark you.’ We still had not decided, lumpectomy or mastectomy.”
Her decision boiled down to this: a lumpectomy meant she would require many rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatment to follow; a mastectomy meant she would require preventative chemotherapy, no radiation.
“I had a full mastectomy,” she said. “I was cancer-free from the time of surgery because everything was localized and contained.”
From February to April, Kris underwent her preventative chemotherapy treatments in Sidney at the Dorwart Cancer Center.
“It’s such a blessing to be able to have everything done here,” she said.
The first round of chemo made Kris physically ill. The next three rounds weren’t quite as tough on her, but the overall toll of the therapy came when the hairdresser started losing her eyelashes, her eyebrows and her hair.
“The first day that you’re in the shower and you lean back to get your hair wet and you’re itchy because you don’t realize how much of your hair is falling out – it took four days from that day until we shaved my head,” Kris said. “The day that we shaved my head was the hardest day.”
The honor of shaving Kris’ head did not belong to her husband or even her children, although they served as an airtight support system at home. The honor fell to Kris’ longtime co-worker and fellow cancer survivor, Michelle Woodman. Kris also credits Michelle with giving her the push she needed some days at work when she thought she wasn’t strong enough.
“When somebody tells you that you have cancer, there’s no normal anymore,” she said. “That was normal for me to be able to get up and go to work and do what I needed to do and come home, even if I dropped when I got home. That was the only normal that I had.”
As Kris discovered, she was indeed strong enough. And she still is – you see, her breast cancer tested estrogen-positive. So instead of waiting for the cancer Hydra to grow another head, she’s heading it off with a hysterectomy later this year to further reduce her chance of a recurrence.
Undoubtedly, it would be difficult to walk a mile in Kris’ shoes, but if that day comes she wants you to remember this: “Don’t wait. You just can’t. Those three words – you have cancer – will scare the life out of you, but yet at the same time they will show you how strong you can actually be.”
– This is the first in a series of articles highlighting the struggles of local cancer survivors. On Aug. 12, the Night of Hope Walk for Cancer will take place at Legion Park to raise funds to support local cancer patients. The Sidney Sun-Telegraph thanks Kris Tvrs for her interview and we urge support for cancer research that will provide more people the chance to become cancer-free.
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