Like too many women, Alisa Wilson tried to ignore the lump she discovered in her left breast.
She hoped it would go away, and when it did not, she gathered the courage to go to a doctor in Baton Rouge in June 2006. Dr. Robert Elliott performed a biopsy, and Wilson crossed her fingers, hoping for a good outcome.
Instead, the 40-year-old Magnolia resident got a phone call from Elliott, who told her she had cancer.
“I almost passed out,” Wilson said. “I couldn’t hear anything else he was saying. All I was thinking was, ‘I’m going to die and leave my husband and three children.’ I remember thinking, ‘How am I going to tell my children?’ I just couldn’t do it.”
Fortunately for Wilson, whose husband, the Rev. Jimmy “J.J.” Wilson is a pastor, she had plenty of church friends and others who cared for her and took on some of the responsibility.
Her best friend, Sandra Gatlin, told her children, JaLisa, 14; JaWanna, 11; and JaTerrica, 5.
“When I found out, I said, ‘Man, this is real,’ ” JaLisa said. “I cried, and cried and cried. I felt like I really wasn’t there. I was just out of it.”
Two weeks after her diagnosis, while Alisa was dealing with the fact that she would have to undergo a mastectomy, plus chemotherapy, she said she heard the voice of God speaking to her.
“I was laying in bed. I saw a bright light by my bed, and I heard the voice of the Lord,” she said. “He showed me where he opened me up and took the lump out and said, ‘Woman, you are healed. But you’ve got to go through the process, so you can have a testimony.’
“That was the beginning of my healing process,” she said. “When God says it, just believe it.”
The worst part of the treatment ordeal wasn’t the surgery, which was performed on the day before Thanksgiving, but the chemotherapy, which was painful for Wilson.
“I had four treatments before surgery, when he removed my breast,” she said. “And then I had four more treatments. It was horrible. During that time, my children were very sweet to me.”
She said she couldn’t stand to smell any food during her treatment, and she was in pain.
“The tumor never hurt me at all,” Wilson said. “It was the chemo.”
The doctor told Wilson that she had a “very aggressive cancer,” but it had not spread to any lymph nodes.
“I thank God and pray that it doesn’t come back,” she said.
And while she had her faith to guide her through the cancer ordeal, Wilson said there were times when she didn’t want to live.
“During those times, I was thinking about being pain free,” she said. “One day, I was actually going to come out in front of an 18-wheeler.”
Just like she heard the voice of God, so, too, did Wilson believe she heard the voice of the devil, encouraging her to take her life.
But Wilson kicked loose those fleeting moments of death and concentrated on the good things in her life: her husband, children, mother, Bertha Young of McComb; Gatlin and other friends, Connie Nunnery, Angie Berry and Teresa Imhof; her sisters, Needa Simmons, Debbie White and Hazel White; her aunt, Bertha Green; her cousin, Shay Robertson; and her church family at East Fernwood Baptist Church.
The cancer diagnosis and treatment has brought Wilson’s family closer together, but it scared her youngest child, JaTerrica.
“After surgery, she saw me in the hospital bed. It did something to her,” Wilson said. “She wants to stay close to me now.”
Wilson is now on Herceptin, a preventive method of treatment that doesn’t leave her quite so weak or sick.
She said she sometimes still feels lonely, but a hug from someone who cares is all it takes to bring her back to cheerful thoughts.
“I guess I need to know people here still care,” she said. “I want everyone to know that no matter what you’re going through, know that God is there.”
