Noreen Hyslop photo Marilyn Tucker, with fervent determination and an ever-present smile, has beaten the odds and has survived a cancer diagnosis for over 11 years. She is an active participant in Relay for Life and will be among the first on the track for the Survivor's Lap when the local Relay kicks off on the evening of Friday, August 1

Marilyn Tucker was just 47 back in 1997 when life as she knew it was forever changed. Known to family and colleagues as the one person whose smile is perpetual and whose resilience is an example for all who cross her path, she wasn't prepared for what was about to come her way.

"I've always been extremely healthy," Tucker explains, "so much so that I didn't even have a family doctor when I had a problem. When you're never sick, you just don't take an opportunity to establish a physician."

Not only was Marilyn Tucker seldom ill. She had never undergone surgery in her life.

She did, however, seek out a doctor promptly when in April of '97, she experienced some rectal bleeding. Dr. Dick Newell at Bloomfield recommended that she immediately undergo a colonoscopy and assisted her in getting an appointment.

"I always credited Dr. Newell with being expedient and helping move the procedure right along," Tucker now recalls.

The colonoscopy, which took place in a matter of days after her initial appointment, revealed Marilyn's worst fears. Following the procedure, the attending physician told Marilyn that there was evidence of a tumor on the colon and that based on his experience, it looked malignant.

"We were just pretty much in shock at that point," Marilyn remembers, "and we were told to see a surgeon immediately."

Once again, with no prior experience with a major illness, the Tuckers were advised to see Dr. Ron Richmond. Richmond, a Bloomfield native, is a general surgeon and at the time was just beginning his practice in Cape Girardeau.

"I told my husband I wasn't going to see a doctor who was younger than me," Marilyn jokes, "and Dr. Richmond was, but not my much, so I relented!"

"At that first visit, he told me that we wouldn't know anything positively until we did a biopsy of the tumor, and that got my hopes up that maybe it wasn't malignant after all."

Surgery was scheduled later that same week, during which not only a large section of the colon was removed, but 18 lymph nodes as well, for the pathology lab to determine if cancer cells were present.

The morning after her surgery, doctors told Marilyn and her husband that it was indeed cancer. The pathology report would later reveal how involved her cancer was.

The surgery required a five-day hospital stay. Following her surgery, she was encouraged to walk the halls as much as she could tolerate to ease the pain and to expedite the healing process.

On the final day of her stay, she was given the news that 12 out of the 18 nodes removed showed evidence of cancer and that she was in a high risk category for the cancer to likely return someday. The news came as a heavy blow to the resilient woman who thought nothing could get her down.

"I was by myself when I got that piece of news and it hit me hard. I'd held it all together, but I sat in that hospital room and thought, 'This is a good time for me to have a little pity party.'"

"But then," she smiles, "I realized that in order to have a really worthwhile pity party, you need someone there to feel sorry for you and I was all by myself! So, I reconsidered and just decided to take one of those long walks around the hospital halls like the doctors had recommended."

The situation serves well to define the character of the woman who would go on to beat her cancer with a vengeance. Following six months of chemotherapy, which took place Monday through Friday for one week of each month, she was quickly on the mend.

"My oncologist first prescribed a dual chemo treatment consisting of a drug called 5FU and Levamisole, but I was highly allergic to the Levamisole," she recalls.

The drug produced severe pain in her joints and was replaced by an alternative drug called Lucavorin.

"When I developed the pain, the doctor told me that he hoped it was not the 5FU drug that was causing it, since there was no replacement chemotherapy for it, so it was a relief when it was determined to be the other drug that was causing the problems."

The new mix of drugs had few side effects and no radiation was required at the end of the six month treatment schedule.

Marilyn returned to work after three weeks of recuperation and fit her chemo treatments into her work schedule, never missing a day. She at first reported yearly for colonoscopies, then bi-annually and was told last year that she could now wait three years.

With tongue in cheek, Marilyn Tucker recalls her philosophy during her recovery process, with the threat of her cancer reoccurring.

"I would hear fellow cancer patients say that they would pray and ask God to just get them to their next goal. Sometimes it was the birth of a grandchild or Christmas or Easter Sunday. Not me! I asked for the whole enchilada! My theory was that I'd worked all my life and so had Gary for the life we shared and I'll be darned if someone else was going to take my place in the rocker beside him someday!"

Apparently, Someone was listening.

Plans call for Gary and Marilyn Tucker of rural Puxico, who will celebrate their 38th year of marriage soon, to rock into the sunset together on their rural Puxico farm.

Marilyn Tucker is an avid participant in Stoddard County's Relay for Life event, which will take place at Dexter's West City Park on August 1-2.

The Relay event, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, raises funds for cancer research. Tucker is part of the Bernie Christian Team and will be walking in the Survivor's Lap that will kickoff the August event.