Fight of her life: Bibb school board member takes on cancer and wins

One night last December, Sue Sipe couldn't sleep.

Chemotherapy had begun taking its toll. She crawled out of bed and headed downstairs to sit by her Christmas tree.

"What if I'm not here next Christmas?" she thought.

After switching on the tree's lights, she stared up at the glowing angel on top and talked to it.

Without a word, the angel gave her solace.

A couple of weeks earlier, Sipe had been diagnosed with Stage 3 invasive lobular carcinoma. Of all the different types of breast cancer, just 20 percent of women get this type.

The morning before she went in for her regular mammogram, which led to her diagnosis, she looked in the mirror.

"When I looked in the mirror that morning, the left one just didn't look the same as the right one," she said. "Something looked a little bit different."

The X-ray technicians confirmed her intuition.

While the scan itself didn't reveal anything, the technicians told her they were "suspicious" of her self-exam concerns. Following a suggestion from her gynecologist, she consulted with a surgeon.

"To me, at that point, it didn't really mean anything," Sipe said. But the next day, the surgeon told her to "be prepared," because he thought more tests might confirm breast cancer.

"You can't help but think, why me?" she said. "Why is this happening to me?"

No one in her family, even going back "several generations," had ever had cancer. Sipe, 63, wanted to be around to see her grandchildren grow up.

The following Monday, she received a call from her doctor's office. They asked her to come in. She thought it would be bad news and it was -- Stage 3 breast cancer.

"My Stage 3 indicated that it moved beyond the original site and it is now gone to another area of my body," she said. "You know, it goes up to (Stage) 4."

Elizabeth Hodge, Sipe's daughter who lives in England, recalls the news being a "punch to the stomach."

She and her mother cried together over the phone.

"You never think of the day you're going to have to take care of your parents, the day that you have to take care of the two people that have taken care of you for so long," Hodge said.

Sipe's doctors came up with a plan of treatment -- 33 radiation treatments, 16 rounds of chemotherapy and a double mastectomy -- and they both told her, "You've got to come to terms with what you're about to do."

One of the most important things the doctors told her was to rid her life of stress.

"Stress cannot help you," she remembers them saying. "You've got to de-stress your life."

But Sipe wasn't about to give up her normal life, which included bookkeeping at Eastside Lumber Co. and serving as a member on the Bibb County school board.

Her daughter said she always had the "pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps" kind of attitude.

"In my mind," Sipe said, "if I gave up working or if I gave up the school board, then I'm giving in to cancer."

Being a school board member isn't necessarily a walk in the park, but to Sipe, it "is not stressful because it allowed me to take control of my cancer and allowed me to be in charge."

Sipe began to tell the news to her boss and other school board members. She told them she was going to do her best to maintain her normal life.

Lynn Farmer, a friend of Sipe's and former Bibb school board member, said Sipe loves her school board work.

"She feels a commitment. She's one of those people -- once she's made a commitment, she's going to see it through," Farmer said. "But she would never do a halfway job of anything. That's not who Sue Sipe is."

Farmer recalls that Sipe was determined to beat the cancer.

"She was going to survive, she was going to win," she said.

BEGINNING TO HEAL

Sipe was sitting in a chair receiving chemotherapy at the start of 2015.

For the first four rounds, treatments lasted four to six hours. She would chat with other women near her who were also receiving treatment.

Some of them told her how they quit their jobs the moment they were diagnosed, and some said they would stay in bed all day. But Sipe knew she couldn't do that.

"I can't give in. I've got to make my life as normal as possible," she said.

About a month into her treatments, she found herself in a chair at the hair salon. Some of her hair fell out in a clump that morning.

But Sipe had already decided she wasn't going to let her illness dictate when she would go bald.

"I'm going to shave my own head," she said. "I am not going to let cancer take my hair."

Sipe's daughter cut it at the salon.

"Who gets to shave their mom's head?" Hodge joked.

The clippers buzzed while Sipe and her daughter relished in a "fun moment" of smiling, laughing and crying.

Despite losing all her hair, Sipe found a silver lining: not having to shave her legs.

"I got through the whole summer, and I didn't have to shave my legs," she said.

Throughout her journey, she said humor kept her going.

To get through cancer, "you have to laugh," Sipe said.

In July, Sipe was now sitting in her school board chair just a few short days after a double mastectomy.

While cancer was only found in her left breast and lymph nodes, Sipe elected for a double mastectomy as a precaution.

Sipe's daughter made it a priority to be with her mother during the two most "major moments" of Sipe's cancer battle -- when she lost her hair and had the mastectomy.

STRONG SUPPORT SYSTEM

Not long after her diagnosis, Sipe discovered six helium balloons on her front porch left by her next-door neighbor.

She also found herself inundated with positive affirmations written on index cards as well as dozens of silk, pink flowers.

Hodge had contacted Sipe's friends on social media and asked them to send the items.

One by one, Sipe began receiving the cards and flowers which now make up "two beautiful, really large, flower arrangements" in her office at work.

"I have all kinds of beautiful pink silk flowers, so I knew that everyone was thinking about me," she said.

Sipe also made a new "texting friend" who was about a month ahead of her in diagnosis and treatment.

"It was really important to have that person who knew what I was going through," she said.

At school board meetings, Shirley Fussell, assistant to the superintendent, would leave a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer at Sipe's chair.

It was a gesture that showed Fussell was aware of doctors' warnings to Sipe that she "be careful" around a lot of people during her treatment. Shaking hands and other types of public exposure would put Sipe at risk of getting sick because of the cancer treatments' effect on her immune system.

Positive notes and simple, loving salutes, Sipe said, were the "types of things that were really important to me, and it got me through this."

Sipe spoke with several people in her circle and also asked God to give her strength.

"Through this whole journey, she has not missed one day of work," her daughter said.

Faith, family and friends helped her make it through, Sipe said.

CHRISTMAS IN OCTOBER

When Sipe found out about her cancer last December. she said, "We had not put up our Christmas tree yet."

At first, she didn't want the tree up.

But after talking with her husband, they agreed they wanted a tree.

The tree would become an important part of Sipe's healing. Later she said, "I'm not taking this Christmas tree down until I get through chemotherapy."

After completing her treatment plan Oct. 16, Sipe no longer has cancer, at least for now.

"They say you're cancer free until something comes up again, but all three of my doctors are very hopeful that between the radiation, the chemotherapy and the surgery that I have done everything that I need to do to make myself free of this particular type of cancer," she said.

Sipe had made it through her treatments, and she was now ready for the tree to come down. But her husband wanted to keep it up through this year's holiday season since it had provided so much comfort to her.

The plastic tree is now a testament. It had survived Sipe's yearlong struggle.

And the angel on top is still shining.

"I'm going to be there for Christmas this year," she said.

To contact writer David Schick, call 744-4382 or find him on Twitter @davidcschick.

This story was originally published October 24, 2015 at 9:08 PM with the headline "Fight of her life: Bibb school board member takes on cancer and wins ."