Thinking pink

By Tony Gonzalez

The News Virginian

In the past four weeks of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, women across the United States have engaged their communities about the health menace and their personal struggles against it.

But one Waynesboro couple isn’t finished raising awareness.

While neighbors assembled Halloween yard displays, Bekky Jones-Ludwick and husband Tracy worked to make an illuminated pink ribbon, the undisputed symbol of breast cancer, for their front yard.

Bekky already wears the ribbon on earrings, bracelets, shirts and a tattoo on her neck.

Bekky is a cancer survivor, still struggling with the reprecussions of losing a breast, but nevertheless cancer-free since the March operation.

“She went through all of it,” her husband said.

“No,” she interjected. “We did.”

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women in the United States, according ot the American Cancer Society, which estimates 40,170 women will die from the disease this year.

Almost 2.5 million women have survived.

“[Bekky’s] sense of hope and positive outlook have been part of why she’s done so well with her treatment,” said oncologist Todd Wolf at the Cancer Center at Augusta Health. “She actually talks more about other women that have breast cancer and more awareness, than just herself.”

Wolf had Bekky on a “hyper-vigilant” examination schedule, every six months, which helped discover malignant tumors early.

She had long feared the disease, which afflicted two aunts and a grandmother, she said.

During a checkup last November, Bekky realized something was wrong when doctors didn’t let her leave after 20 minutes.

“I knew then,” she said. “I had feared it for years.”

In February, just two days before her 50th birthday, doctors confirmed the cancer.

Bekky spread news of her diagnosis slowly.

“In the very beginning it was a lot of denial,” said longtime friend Hope Walker. “We’d go out. We’d laugh about things and joke about things.”

Bekky, a “very, very strong woman,” held up, Walker said.

“But we didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said.

Back home after the surgery, Bekky faced perhaps the most difficult part of breast cancer: she became self conscious, chose to stay inside and changed her wardrobe to hide her new body.

When she had to fix bandages, it was up to husband Tracy to help out. Revealing herself, she was “shook up.”

Not Tracy.

“I see my wife with no cancer,” he said to Bekky.

“I realized how much he supported me,” she said.

Walker said Tracy has been “fabulous.”

“He made her feel like a woman,” Walker said.

When Bekky suggested a yard display, Tracy told her he could cut out anything she could draw.

They soon had a ribbon adorned with pink lights.

“Our Christmas tree is going to be pink this year,” Bekky added.

The couple still fears for a recurrence, common to many who overcome breast cancer, Wolf said.

But Bekky is more comfortable discussing her challenges.

“It’s coming natural for her to be really involved ... educating people that don’t understand,” Walker said. “She beat it ... She’s turning it into a positive.”

Bekky praised the Hope Center, but Wolf said support groups there could benefit from higher attendance.

“A lot of women … want to keep this private,” Wolf said. “That’s tough to do.”

“I’m tired of being scared,” Bekky said. “You feel like damaged goods. But you have to move on.”