Karla Teel and her new husband, Donnie are jetting out to Las Vegas this week to celebrate their wedding that took place in May. The odds of them taking this trip would have been low eight years ago.
Teel, two-time graduate of Auburn University and now a professor in consumer and design sciences, was first diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2006.
"We had gone away for the weekend and that Sunday night, I felt something while performing a self-exam," Teel said. "I thought 'Well, I should definitely get this checked out.'"
The following Monday, Teel had a mammogram and ultrasound, with three technicians unable to find anything. However, the head of radiology at the Montgomery Cancer Center was there, found a trouble spot and ordered a biopsy.
"They did a core biopsy that Monday morning, called me in and said 'I'm sorry to tell you but you have breast cancer,'" Teel said.
The cancer was invasive lobular carcinoma, meaning it was found in the lobes of the breast. Doctors told Teel there was about an 80 percent chance that kind mirrors in the other breast at some point.
"I wasn't going to just wait for the other shoe to drop, so I made the decision to go ahead and have a double mastectomy," Teel said.
Already in an abusive marriage, her ex-husband was not pleased with her decision.
"This was just another thing he did not have control over," Teel said. "He had controlled me all those years."
Her parents came through with the encouragement she needed.
"We just wanted to be around and tell her we love her and be there for support," said Patricia Peacy, Teel's mother.
Unlike most breast cancer patients, doctors recommended that Teel go through chemotherapy first, and then have the mastectomy.
"Since I was having double mastectomy with reconstruction, they hoped the chemo would shrink the tumor and help save breast tissue for the reconstruction," Teel said.
Undergoing the chemotherapy in the summer of 2006, Teel quickly found out she was the type of patient that, if something could go wrong, it would go wrong.
"My fingernails and toenails rotted off, where I had to wear gloves so I wouldn't get infection," Teel said. "My hands, feet and mouth blistered so where I couldn't eat or swallow. I couldn't walk. My oncologist said I got the prize for the most complicated patient. If there was a risk, we had to be on the safe side."
The double mastectomy and reconstruction followed in September, and again there were a lot of infections. At a certain point, doctors at UAB told Teel, "You are just going to have to live with what you've got."
Teel wasn't going to take that for an answer.
"I got a couple of recommendations and went to a plastic surgeon in Montgomery," Teel said. "He immediately changed the type of implants."
From April 2006 until January 2009, Teel underwent 10 surgeries. Cancer seemed to be in the past.
It came knocking again in May 2009.
"I was still doing my self-exams because I had a new body I wasn't familiar with," Teel said. "On May 8, I found another lump under my arm."
Doctors took out the lump and then said, "Karla, I can't believe I am telling you this but it's cancer again."
They went on to explain to Teel it was a different kind of breast cancer.
"How can that be," Teel said. "I don't have any breasts."
It was adenocarcinoma, which is the beginning of breast cancer. Since there were no breasts for the cancer to drift to, it would have gone to another organ.
"I will never know because I was blessed enough to find it," Teel said. "It was just seven millimeters. That was God right there."
Through 36 sessions of radiation, Teel continued to teach full-time.
"I brought a cot downstairs," Teel said. "I would do radiation in the morning, have two hours to take a nap and then teach for five hours. You do what you have to do. I was not going to let cancer beat me."
Teel just recently reached her five-year mark of being cancer free. Most recurrences, according to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, happen within five years.
"The five-year mark is where everyone strives to be," Teel said.
Teel is now a major advocate for breast cancer and helps counsel women who are going through the same things she did.
"When I was diagnosed the second time and had to go through radiation, I felt that that was God telling me that he has allowed this to happen to me so I can speak on the entire experience," Teel said. "That gave me a sense of purpose."
Working with Connections, a University support group for those affected by breast cancer, Teel is spreading her message.
"My goal is to give them courage and uplift them by showing that I haven't survived just once, but twice," Teel said. "Everybody's journey is going to be different, but if you have a positive attitude, you can beat this."
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