Clinton Mayor Lew Starling, left, with Nettie Pernell and Clinton Police Chief Donald Edwards, reads a proclamation in honor of Clinton’s first-ever ‘Night Out’ in 2017, a national community-building event to promote relationships between police departments and those they serve.
After years of advocating on behalf of the American Cancer Society and dealing with the loss of her mother at the hands of breast cancer, Nettie Wilson-Pernell is ready to tell her own story, detailing her own journey with breast cancer and treatment four years ago.
Wilson-Pernell’s story with breast cancer actually begins when she was in her teens and her mother was diagnosed with the disease.
“My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer well before I was pre-teen, and then she passed,” Pernell said, her easily recognizable voice filled with emotion. “Back then they did not have chemo. All they had was radiation, and in that time, they cooked it. It was like they burned you. That was their way of treatment for breast cancer, and she had a mastectomy and then they also had done the radiation on that area. That was what I was familiar with.”
Wilson-Pernell explained that when her mother had cancer there weren’t many organizations that helped cancer patients. In fact, there was only the American Cancer Society. Even still, she called them a “saving grace” when they came forward to help the family after her mother’s diagnosis — and later, her death.
“They came out when we were all consumed with my mother and her diagnosis and helped her. They came and brought life back to us to let us know that there was Thanksgiving, there was Christmas, and they did that for us to get us into a routine so we were also consumed and let us know that we had other outlets to be able to deal with her diagnosis and all,” she said.
It was this experience that gave Wilson-Pernell a desire to help other people going through similar situations, walking a familiar path.
“I became more involved when Sampson County started their BCCCP Program. I happily joined in because of wanting to advocate. I also wanted to let people know that they had other resources there to be offered if they didn’t have insurance or they were underinsured or uninsured, they could go to BCCCP,” she said. “And then I got involved with Susan G. Coleman, and I used to volunteer with them and everything. In fact, we helped bring a chapter to Wilmington, but it’s more actively being done in the Raleigh-Durham area.”
Her long-time advocacy, Wilson-Pernell attested, was why, when she was diagnosed with the disease, she never questioned her diagnosis.
“I just said, ‘well, girl you know, you’ve come full circle now. Not only have you had a family member (be diagnosed), but you’re able to tell your side of the story,’” she stressed.
She was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in April 2019. Triple negative breast cancer, according to Wilson-Pernell, is a type of breast cancer that lacks receptors for estrogen, progesterone and HER2 proteins. It also accounts for 15 percent of all breast cancers and is most likely to impact younger women and individuals with the BRCA mutation and those of black or Hispanic descent.
“It’s an invasive type of breast cancer and it tends to grow and spread faster than most other breast cancers,” she said.
According to Wilson-Pernell, her cancer was “so small, and I would not have even realized (I had it).”
“I wondered if the technician knew what she was doing because she kept having to position me and stuff on my left breast, but she was also the same when she was doing my right breast, too,” she said. “Then, two weeks, a week, maybe, they called me back and asked me to come in for another mammogram of my left breast.”
She attributed the return visit to a technician not doing the mammogram correctly, but then she got another call and a letter to come back in because the doctors wanted to do an ultrasound and a biopsy. After that was done, Wilson-Pernell was told they would be in touch with her.
“They just told me that I had a follow-up appointment, and they didn’t tell me anything else, but sort of in the back of my mind, I sort of knew that there was something, because for them to call me and tell me about having a follow-up appointment,” she said.
At the follow-up appointment, she was told that she had cancer and they had to plan next steps.
“From there, I went over to the breast care clinic at Womack. I have been seen by them and I am still being seen by them, and they have taken very good care of me. I received my chemo here at Clinton, at Southeastern Medical Oncology,” she said.
Her reasoning for having the chemotherapy done in Clinton was because she didn’t want to be far from home.
“I had seen how others have been, and I had taken a lot of other people who had chemo. I had taken them to their treatments and had been there with them, and I knew that I did not want to be riding any long distance (after treatment),” she said.
The treatment, Wilson-Pernell noted, had some “debilitating” symptoms due to the chemotherapy drug that was used. She explained that she would go in to get her chemotherapy and then a few days later she would start feeling the symptoms.
“It would sort of knock you back down, and then you would feel cruddy that week following and then about three days before you were ready to go back to your next chemo treatment you felt OK. And then, after that, it would zap you again, and the cycle started all over again,” she said.
She had multiple symptoms to deal with through chemo including neuropathy in her feet and hands, and later what she called “chemo brain.”
“They say chemo brain is real. You are talking sometimes and everything, it gets cloudy. You don’t remember everything that you just finished saying.”
For Wilson-Pernell, her chemo brain is something she still has to deal with even four years later.
“I didn’t get a mastectomy. I got the lumpectomy, and the area was so small and all, but by the grace of God they were able to see it and it was in the back wall of my breast,” she said. “I felt like, for me, I am a miracle.”
Her treatments ended in 2020, but her advocacy and desire to educate others did not. She’s able to get magazines quarterly from the National Cancer Institute and it helps keep her updated on what new things are happening in the field.
She’s also able to use her story and experiences to help other people who might be going through similar things. Her main point is always stressing the need to have yearly mammograms and self-exams.
“I tell anybody and everybody, early detection is the best protection,” she asserted. “So when you go and get your mammograms, you do self-press exams, that’s how you save your life. If you see anything that is not normal, you go to your doctor. You advocate for yourself, and if they don’t take your advice or they don’t want to hear what you’re saying, that’s your body. That’s not theirs. That’s your body and you need to be able to let your voice be heard. So you go and get another opinion of somebody who’s going to listen to you.”
You can reach Alyssa Bergey at 910-249-4617. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.