This time of year, Merle Niles tends to get a tad sentimental. It isn’t because of a sense of nostalgia that evokes her memories, but a sense of gratitude for life, for beating breast cancer and for being in the present.
Twelve years ago, life for Merle was looking very different when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 48. For her, it wasn’t something she advertised, or told many people about. For her, it was a matter she dealt with between her and God.
“I never talked about it, never cried one day or say, why me,” she said, while getting her nails done in pink at a salon to commemorate Breast Cancer Awareness Month. “I never had a family history, and I never told anyone anything. That was never my attitude.”
That sense of independence, or dependence on God, whom she lovingly refers to as the “General”, along with a steely determination and a positive outlook kept her strong and sane.
“I was at Carifesta in St Kitts on August 31,” Merle recalled. “We were waiting to come home and I sitting waiting to be picked up. Normally, I wear a crucifix and I remembered playing with my chain and couldn’t find it. I remembered feeling around for it and I found the crucifix on my breast on the exact spot the lump was. That was a God thing. I said to my friend Cynthia Wilson: ‘Oh shoot, I have a lump’. She said to me joking: ‘Merle, you have to have breasts to have lumps,’ and we laughed. I got up and went to her and let her touch it and she felt it.”
Perhaps, that was a bit of divine intervention on God’s part. But Merle acknowledged that she didn’t go to the doctor right away.
“On September 4, I was going to a meeting and I passed Brigade House and I said let me stop in here and see Michael Griffith.?He is now dead,” she said. “He was my friend. I told him I need you to check my breast and he laughed. He checked the right one first, and looked at me like, ‘lump what?’ Then he checked the other one and he ordered me to go and do a mammogram and ultrasound.”
Merle did go a couple days later for what she called an excruciating mammogram.
“That was the worst experience I’ve ever had,” she said. “I don’t know how it is for people who have breasts, but I really didn’t have big breasts, and the more they pushed the breast, the more I felt in my neck.
“The mammogram did reveal that the lump was indeed cancerous. Afterwards, I went to Dr Shenoy, who sent me to Dr Thani for the surgery.”
Initially, Merle said it was recommended that she have a mastectomy.
“I’m a former nurse and I know I have choices and I told Dr Thani to give me choices and I will make the decision,” she revealed. “I went home, thought about it, decided to have a frozen section and opted to have the lump removed. On the day of the surgery, they left my notes on the table in my room and I got a red pen, underlined about 16 times, under no circumstances are you to remove my breast. They all laughed at that, but I was serious.
“I did chemo for three months and five weeks of radiation therapy and I’ve never been to a doctor since then for cancer checkups. They had two years of my life, what more do they want?”
Merle also revealed that she didn’t get sick from the chemotherapy though she did lose all of her hair.
“Dr Shenoy gave me two tablets after the first set of chemo and told me you should take these now because you’re going to be sick,” Merle said. “I told him I’m not to be sick and I’m not taking the tablets. I was never sick. I think I only threw those tablets away three years ago.”
For Merle, her battle with cancer was more a battle of wills and she was determined that her will was going to be the stronger one.
“A lot of this is mind over matter. A lot of people get to the next level, and I mean the ‘tombstone level’, because as soon as they hear they have it, death stares them in the face,” she said. “My motto is ‘cancer is a death warrant but God is my Governor and he will pardon me until he’s ready’.”
After the treatment, Merle also revealed that she never changed her life as many survivors often do.
“To my mind, I remained as I was,” she said. “I never changed my diet. God was always in my life and I didn’t change my life.”
What the experience did was give her a greater appreciation for friends that stood by her throughout the process.
“David ‘Danny’ Nicholls drove me to every chemo and radiation treatment. People like Mac Fingall, Neville Duncan, Pauline Layne, and her sister Jeannette, John King, Cynthia Wilson, Michelle Gaskin, Adrian Cummins, Tony Lane, Tarah Holdipp and Kendel Hippolyte were so good to me,” she said.
“Of course, my mother was amazing and my brothers. They didn’t see it as an illness because of my own attitude.”
Since then, Merle has grown long locks in celebration of her hair, though she’s threatening to cut them off.
“I always said when I was 50, I would go natural,” Merle recalled. “I don’t regret anything that happened. I just dealt with it between me and my God. This is my twelfth year and I am happy to be alive to tell this story.”
