For Sherry Lindsay, life in 2016 was a lot like the lives of many women in this day and age. She and her husband, Brian, were raising two kids, she had a full-time job working at the Social Security Office in Middlesboro and she was very involved in her church and community.
“I was the type of person who was going 200 miles an hour and suddenly in one day my life came to a screeching halt,” she said.
In December of 2016 Sherry was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. It was Invasive ductal carcinoma and the treatment called for four months of chemotherapy and she also had a double mastectomy and immediate reconstruction surgery.
The cancer was found during a routine yearly exam that included both a mammogram and an ultrasound.
“The doctor came in and said nothing showed up on the mammogram but she saw something on the ultrasound,” Sherry said. “From there I had to have an MRI and they did a biopsy. My doctor said from her experience and looking at the MRI, ‘I think it’s cancer.’’
That is the point where most people would feel very fearful and torn up.
“It’s a heavy diagnosis, okay. But I personally did not feel afraid,” Sherry said. “For two years up to that point the Lord had led me to study healing. I wasn’t really sure why I had felt led to do the deep dive on what His word says about healing and health. But I believe that my heart and my spirit was just so full of the word and what it says about healing and health that there was no room for fear.”
Sherry’s daughter, son, and husband were with her for a meeting with doctors about what the treatment would be. The type of cancer she was diagnosed with can be treated effectively with chemotherapy.
“I felt very disappointed when I realized that it’s the type of chemo that makes your hair fall out and things like that,” she said. “That’s very difficult for most women, your hair and your body are a big part of what makes you feel like a woman.”
Sherry said her hair started falling out on Christmas Day, but she didn’t let her family know until Christmas was over because she didn’t want them to be sad.
She said one of the first things she did was speak to her church, Community Harvest Tabernacle, because she “felt like everybody was going to look at me differently and they did.”
“I told them that I had been diagnosed with breast cancer, I’m not going to say I have cancer and I don’t want you to say I have cancer. I never used those words. I always said I’ve been diagnosed,” Sherry said. “The Bible tells us that the power of life and death is in our tongue, what we speak. So I didn’t want to take ownership of it. It didn’t have me and it wasn’t mine.
That’s just a personal belief that I have.”
She asked the church to be full of faith and to speak that faith back to her. She also asked her coworkers to stay positive and faithful.
“I needed people being positive and speaking about healing because that really affects your mind and your faith,” she said.
After four months of chemo and multiple surgeries, 2017 was a year of healing. Sherry had to learn to let people help her and do things for her.
“I was always independent, the one who did everything for everybody else, and it was hard for me to receive. People were serving me and trying to do kind acts for me,” she said. “There are times when you don’t have an appetite (while going through treatment), but your family has an appetite and they have to eat. I didn’t always have the strength to really cook. So it really blessed my family for people to come in and do those kind acts like help clean house, run errands or just check in to see how I was doing and to let me know they were praying for me.
All of that means so much and you never forget it. As long as you live, you never forget every card, everything that people do for you is like a lifetime of connection with people who cared about you and prayed for you and just were there for you.”
Sherry stressed that in addition to her faith, she followed all of her doctors’ directions while in recovery.
“I was a really good patient. Everything my doctor asked me to do, I did it exactly and I stood on the word of God,” she said. “Scripture says ‘By His stripes we were healed,’ and that God wants us to be in health and prosper even as our soul prospers. I stood on all of those scriptures on healing, and I also did every single thing that my natural doctor asked me to do because it all works together. I believe that’s why I’m here today.”
Sherry retired from the Social Security Administration two years after her breast cancer diagnosis. 
“I had two more years before I could take early retirement and I had to miss a lot of work, at least eight to ten days per month, while I went through chemo,” she said. “They were so accommodating and so kind, they made sure I could have a private office to do interviews by phone to protect my immune system. They even brought in a cot for me in case I got so weak I had to lay down for a few minutes. They were incredible.”
Today, Sherry is an ordained minister and is the associate pastor at Community Harvest Tabernacle, where her father David Rice is the pastor. She speaks at churches and women’s events about her faith and about being a breast cancer survivor.
“When you’ve lived something and really walked through it, it’s a testimony and you can tell people: ‘Hey, there is hope!’ she said. “Look at me today, seven years out. That encourages people, that helps build their faith and their hope.”
Sherry still goes once a year to have mammograms and ultrasounds done. She just has those done the last week of September.
“All of those tests came back perfect,” she said. “I want any woman who reads this and is dealing with breast cancer to know that it can be them.
“After a few years you sort of go on with life, but sitting here and talking about it I’m just so grateful and thankful to be alive.”