'Soul Sistahs Fighting': Retired detention officer shares her cancer battle

PHOENIX - "It started in 2018. I got a call," Melissa Lawson said. "They found a lump in my breast. A nice huge one. It didn't start small. It was 3.2 cm. I can tell you that much."

It was in February that year when Lawson was given the news she never expected because just months earlier, in August 2017, her mammogram was clear.

At her first appointment with a new doctor, she knew something wasn't right.

"I thank God I went to go see her when I went into the visit," she said. "I never met her before. She physically rubbed on that lump and said, ‘Can I do a surgical biopsy on you?’"

Lawson said yes.

"From that surgical biopsy, that’s what I learned. I had cancer," she said.

It was triple positive breast cancer at the age of 43.

"It was crazy," said Melissa. "I was like, wow, having to tell my son and daughter this.

Dig deeper:

It was an uphill battle, as statistics from the American Cancer Society's "Voices of Black Women" study show that Black women have the highest death rate of any ethnic group in the U.S. for most cancers.

Black women under the age of 50 are twice as likely to die of breast cancer than white women.

The ‘Red Devil’

"When I had my chemo and everything, I had it so aggressively," said Lawson.

Her chemotherapy was 13 months long and required medicine nicknamed the "Red Devil."

"With the 'Red Devil,' your hair comes out – the first week all of it comes out, every piece of it," said Lawson.

Through the love and support of her family and friends, Melissa is now cancer free. She's empowering other Black women to share their stories, through her support group, "Soul Sistahs Fighting."

We need to stop keeping this a secret and put it strongly in our community and into our churches," she said. "We really need to speak up and stop keeping it a secret."

CancerPhoenixNews