Jamie Hyslope: I was diagnosed with breast cancer in August of 2008, and went to see an oncologist and it was very aggressive stage three, borderline stage four cancer that within three weeks went from roughly the size of a grape to the size of a tennis ball. And so knowing it was really aggressive they started chemo immediately, I had a mastectomy and not knowing that there was other alternatives and types of standards of care I believed that my oncologist at the time was giving me the best treatment that was available, and the most aggressive is what he said he was giving me, and it wasn’t.
We found out then two days after Christmas that my cancer has metastasized and was now in my lungs and my liver, and, at that point we hit rock bottom. He gave me two years if he could get the liver cancer under control, that was a very big “if” on his part, and we were sent home with no hope and thinking we were on borrowed time and so it was a very rough weekend. We spent 48 hours thinking that there were a lot of things I was not going to be there for, there was a lot of things I was going to miss and so sleep was last on the priority list.
I wrote letters to my daughters for each of their birthdays, proms, weddings, and important things a mom should be there for that I wasn’t going to be. And a neighbor happen to come over on the 30th and said that "the Cancer Treatment Center just opened up in Goodyear why haven’t you called them?" And we said we didn’t know they opened and she said well it’s been on the news, it’s on the front page I said we’ve been a little preoccupied here we haven’t watched the news we haven’t seen any newspapers and she gave me the phone number and said "just give them a call." And I waited and I said I’ll wait until after the holiday weekend cause new years eve nobody’s going to be answering the phone on new years eve. She said just call and leave a message.
So I dialed the number it was 10:30 at night and December 31st and Jessica Mann answered the phone, the most amazing voice I’ve ever heard because at that point I knew that there was some sort of hope. We brought the new year in together, on the phone, some girl I had never met but I told her when I’m done with my treatment I’ll come and see you where ever you are, and that’s a promise that’s important to me to keep because she really was my first life line. It was almost like throwing out a lifesaver at that point. And I got off the phone and told my husband "there’s hope, we’ll find it," you know and she took care of everything, I had to do nothing but show up for my first appointment.
And when we got to the Cancer Treatment Center we were standing in the parking lot and my husband kind of grabbed my hand and he looked up knowing that this was kind of our last option and he said "somewhere in this building there's the answer, I just know it."
And we walked through the doors and everybody greeted you with a smile and strangers people I didn’t know, but I could see the Cancer Treatment Center logo, hugging me which, you know you’re a little taken back at the beginning but it was almost like being welcomed into a family, these are going to be your extended family.
And we met Dr. Granick he said, "no worries. Go home, take a break, get some rest and we’ll get it". And he did. Three months later I got the news that the cancer in my lungs had completely dissolved itself and I had over three dozen lesions in my lungs. Three months later I get the great news that the cancer in my liver is no longer detectable on any scan. Three or four different scans were done just to verify including a PET scan and there’s no cancer and that’s simply amazing. To go from having no hope and being given a two year sentence and I’m sitting here now cancer free for the first time in a year, and it’s simply amazing.