She can’t tell you what it’s like to beat breast cancer. Not yet. She can only tell you what it’s like to fight it.

And perhaps the hardest part of that fight isn’t the chemotherapy, the surgeries, or the physical pain. It’s waking up every morning knowing that despite everything she’s endured there are still no guarantees.

“It’s an ugly disease and the first thing going through your mind is, I’m only 60; I’m still young. Am I going to make it?” Darla Stroud said. “I have two grandbabies. I at least want to see them graduate.”

Stroud’s doctor told her everyone has cancer cells in their body; some get it and others don’t.

“Guess what,” she said. “I was one of the ones who got it.”

In September of last year, she found a sore spot and decided to have it checked.

“The doctor thought it was a hematoma, it didn’t move around or anything so he said let’s wait a couple of months and check it again,” she said. “I went back in November and he said it was the same size so I needed to go over and get a CT scan.”

Stroud scheduled a scan and mammogram for the end of November. She said that with the holidays, it was the end of December before a biopsy was scheduled.

“They looked at my lymph nodes and I had to wait 7 to 10 days to get the results,” she said. “I went back on Jan. 20 and that’s when they diagnosed me as stage 3 breast cancer.”

She was told the mass in her breast was the size of a silver dollar and opted to have a double mastectomy. Her surgery was March 23.

“They removed nine lymph nodes in my right arm and eight of them were cancerous,” Stroud said.

In spite of not electing to have reconstructive surgery, her recovery was anything but easy.

“It was ugly; it wasn’t so much pain but you have to carry around drain tubes. Usually, you can have them removed in two or three weeks but one got clogged so I had to keep it for a month,” she said. “I couldn’t start chemo until I got rid of them.”

Stroud’s first round of chemotherapy was three hours every two weeks for four sessions.

“The first three were a breeze, but on the fourth one, by the following week, I was in the hospital for a whole week with an infection and burns,” Stroud said. “I felt like I was in a tanning booth for a whole year. My face and eyes were all burnt and I had scabs under my nose and chin.”

Her doctor referred to that first round as the “red devil.” Stroud was running a fever of 104 degrees when admitted and was unable to begin her second round of chemotherapy until she had fully recovered. Her current round is administered for two hours at a time every week for 12 weeks.

Stroud said she is struggling with neuropathy, however.

“You can get any type of symptoms but for me it’s nerve damage,” she said. “I’ve lost my hair and toenails with this chemo but the worst is the tingling and pain.”

Stroud has been a daycare provider for 29 years and is working through treatment. Once this round of chemotherapy is finished, she’s been told she will probably require three weeks of daily radiation.

“I get up every morning and just do what I have to do,” she said. “I wash my hands frequently, but otherwise, it hasn’t been too awfully bad.”

Stroud’s been married for 40 years and has two daughters.

“It wrecks your whole family; I don’t know really how to explain it,” she said while fighting back tears.

Stroud joined Breast Friends, a support group that meets monthly in Hoisington.

“One of my friends I went to school with had breast cancer, too. She tried and tried to get me to go but I wasn’t ready,” she said. “It’s tough but they were very supportive and know what I’m going through.”

She encourages everyone faced with this diagnosis to get involved in the support group.

“And make goals of things you would like to do,” she said. “I’m praying it’s all gone and I’m going to be a survivor but you don’t know. It makes you look at life a little bit differently but you’ve got to keep going.”

Even though she describes herself as strong-willed, Stroud said she does have her bad days.

“It’s a situation right now where it’s one day at a time; that’s all I can do,” she said. “I do pretty good for the most part but I have my difficult times. Nobody wants to have it and nobody wants to hear about it but it is what it is.”