ANDERSON — When Judy Massey found out a lump in her right breast was cancerous, she wasn’t scared.

She had already seen the effects of breast cancer, already been through the surgery and post-operation procedures and healing. She had already handled the uncertainty and terror that comes with such a diagnosis.

The cancerous lump, however, was Massey’s first. Her experience and knowledge of the devastating effects of cancer had come seven months earlier, when her husband, Rollie Massey, was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I think having gone through his first, I really wasn’t real scared,” Judy Massey said. “I was more concerned with his. I don’t think I reacted real uptight or frightened.”

Rollie Massey’s breast cancer puzzled the couple when he was diagnosed in October 2003. He discovered a lump under his left nipple but didn’t think much of it.

“I just had an itch,” he said. “I scratched it and found it. Men didn’t have breast cancer then.”

Rollie Massey went to his family doctor, where his lump was diagnosed as breast cancer. He later found that the BRAC-2 gene that increases the likelihood of hereditary breast cancer had been passed down through his family and he was a carrier.

“My family never talked about cancer,” Rollie Massey said. “It will kill you. I wanted to live, and that’s why I talk about it.”

A routine mammogram found Judy Massey’s lump in May 2004, about seven months after her husband had been diagnosed. Judy Massey had been having mammograms for years thanks to other benign lumps she had found in her 30s.

“From then on, I faithfully had mammograms every year,” she said. “I always knew that someday down the road it could become cancer. I just felt it.”

After both having modified radical mastectomies to remove one of their breasts, the Masseys — married for 49 years — have been through many of the same experiences.

“This is just little bit too much together,” Judy Massey joked.

The two are cancer-free now, having beat their cancers without the need for chemotherapy or radiation treatments. They go in for regular check-ups and live with the knowledge that the cancer could come back one day — particularly in their brains, bones, kidneys or livers.

“Any time you have something abnormal you always think this could be cancer,” Judy Massey said of life after the disease. “You know that you got it once and it’s possible to get it again.”

Although the Masseys have since lost friends and family members to cancer, including breast cancer, they are most thankful that their ordeal might have saved the life of their daughter.

When Rollie Massey discovered he carried the BRAC-2 gene, the couple’s daughter was tested for the same gene. She had a 50 percent chance of having the genetic mutation that would increase her chances for breast cancer by up to 90 percent.

After finding out that she, too, was a carrier, the Masseys’ daughter had a double prophylactic mastectomy at 31 — before she ever showed any signs of cancer.

“The doctor said she dodged a bullet,” Judy Massey said. “I don’t know if I would have been as brave as she was. (Rollie) went through a period when he was blaming himself.

“Had he ignored that lump we don’t know how this would have turned out.”

The Masseys also learned that men can get breast cancer too, and Rollie Massey hopes other men will learn from his case and not ignore the signs.

“Six years ago, I would have said men don’t get breast cancer, women get it,” Rollie Massey said. “Two thousand men will die this year of breast cancer.”

Judy Massey said she was thankful she did not have to have the chemotherapy and radiation that often cause debilitating side effects in cancer patients.

The worst part, she said, was losing one of her breasts, but her supportive family helped her through it.

“(Rollie) never made me feel like less of a woman or that I was less attractive,” she said. “There was never any negative reaction from him.”

The Masseys now try to get out and educate the public about breast cancer when they can and attend support groups where they meet breast cancer patients and help them through their ordeal.

“The women we come in contact with truly amaze me,” Judy Massey said. “They handle it with such grace and dignity and courage.

“You have to find humor in things. I think that does a great deal in your healing.”



Contact Aleasha Sandley: 640-4805, aleasha.sandley@heraldbulletin.com.