Buddy Check 3: One woman took the message of breast examinations to heart

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - Sometimes it’s tempting to put even important things on a back burner in the rush of this Christmas season. We hope Buddy Check 3 is just the nudge you need to stay up to date on the guidelines to catch breast cancer early in its most treatable stage. We’ve been reminding you every month now for more than a year to call a buddy and make sure both of you are staying current on your self breast exams.

A local woman finally took that advice to heart, and it made a big difference for her. She recently told us she was way too busy just getting her life back on track to consider the possibility of breast cancer. An Ozarks countryside, a small friendly town, and a place to call home. This is where Keyser came to get well before she ever knew she had breast cancer.

At 45-years-old, Keyser survived a lifetime of drug-addiction. 20 years ago, she lost her three children because of the drugs, then found her sobriety and lost it again, and found herself homeless without hope.

According to Keyser, “two and a half years ago I had a backpack with four pictures and one outfit and had not worked in 13 years.”

What a difference hard work, support from her church, and a 12-step program made. Keyser was on top of the world, even reconnecting with her kids. Then last year she felt a bump under her arm, and started talking back to those Buddy Check 3 commercials. Keyser says she would say to the commercial, “It’s nothing Lisa, it’s nothing, leave me alone.”

Keyser finally asked a nurse she knew about the bump, the nurse urged her to get it checked out. She says she had just celebrated a year clean and sober when she got the news that she had breast cancer. Her diagnosis was a year ago. Now after chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, she’s doing better than ever.

“I’m simply blessed, number one to have the want-to to fight, to have the reason to fight and the tools to fight and people walk beside me while I’m fighting,” she says.

Breast Cancer Foundation of the Ozarks was especially helpful during Keyser’s battle, supplying eight months of rent and utilities. Keyser says BCFO literally saved her sanity , allowing her to be able to concentrate on nothing but getting better. She says her gratitude list is 10-miles long.

“If one woman does a self-breast exam and finds that lump and saves her life,” says Keyser.

It’s the reason Keyser’s sharing her story to encourage others to do those self-exams and to give everyone hope in whatever battle they may be fighting. We hope her story will inspire you to be consistent in self exams, doctor’s visits, and other guidelines to trouble shoot breast cancer.

For more information on how to be part of the buddy check program just go to our website and sign up, you’ll get a free information packet. This is a partnership between KY3, Breast Cancer Foundation of the Ozarks, and Mercy and CoxHealth Hospitals.

Copyright 2020 KY3. All rights reserved.