Apr 2, 2006 By Josh Krysak 5 min read

(Editor’s note: This is the first of a three-part series on the overview of cancer, how people cope with it and health-care progress made for the first time in 70 years.)REPUBLIC – Three years ago, Gail Valente loved life, as she enjoyed her new grandchildren and felt she was pretty healthy as she bore down on the big 5-0. But Valente’s outlook took a severe blow in late July 2003.

“I went in for a routine gynecological exam on July 30, 2003, and they found a problem,” Valente said, her eyes beginning to water. “I’m sorry, but I get emotional. They thought it was an ovarian cyst and operated, but it was actually colon cancer. It was stage four and it was very far advanced. I was thinking I was going to have a hysterectomy, and I ended up with a colostomy bag and on chemo.”

She speaks softly, the gold rings on her fingers catching winter sunlight streaming through the window near her dining room table as Dr. Phil chatters on television in the background.

The 51-year-old Republic woman said when she was diagnosed, her two children and husband, Dennis, were there immediately to console her and lift her spirits.

She dabs at her eyes as she remembers waking in the hospital after the surgery.

“I was 48. I woke up in the recovery room and thought, ‘I have cancer.’ I was very upset. My family was very upset. They had been waiting while I was operated on and they kept waiting longer and longer. They didn’t know. I cried with worry and they cried with worry and then, I decided to just put it in God’s hands. I found courage that came from God. I could have walked out of the hospital and gotten run over by a car. It was like that, out of my control.”

Valente said her 27-year-old son and 22-year-old daughter along with her “grandbabies” acted as her inspiration as she embarked on the battle against the disease like millions of other Americans each year.

“I knew what it meant, but I stayed positive,” Valente said.

The cancer was well past her colon, imbedding into neighboring lymph nodes and her ovaries.

Still, Valente said she never really felt sick.

“I felt fine and after I was diagnosed, I felt fine. I thought, ‘I am not as sick as they think I am.’ I was in denial.”

Valente, who never smoked and who did not have a history of cancer in her family, was given six weeks to recover from surgery, during which she became anxious to start treatment.

“You want to get it out,” Valente said. “It is like a bug that lands on you, you just want to get it off.”

After her recovery, doctors reexamined her and found the tumor was almost completely removed during the surgery but noted that trace amounts of cancer cells were found around the region.

For the following six weeks, Valente endured extensive doses of chemotherapy, driving into Uniontown every day to get the 10-minute doses through a port installed in her chest, something Valente said she still has as a reminder of her battle.

While she never really suffered some of the ill effects of chemotherapy, she said it was the worrying and waiting that caused the most anguish, distress she relieved by watching her grandkids and spending time with her husband.

“I tried to keep normalcy in my life, but it was hard. I tried to shop when I could. My family’s support was a big part of it,” Valente said.

After the initial blast of treatment flooded Valente’s system, she was put on a less strict chemo plan, one that had fresh doses infused in her system every two or three days for about six months.

After the second round of treatment, she returned to the hospital for a battery of tests to see how the chemo had faired against the remaining cells.

The tests came back cancer free.

“It was the greatest day of my life,” Valente said. “I was ecstatic. I remember that day clearly.”

And she credited “giving up” the burden for her rapid victory over the disease.

“It was faith that I had that I wasn’t going to give up and that I had a lot to live for,” Valente said. “I told myself that I will die from something someday, but it won’t be cancer.”

Valente said she never thought so many people in Fayette County were afflicted with cancer, but said the friends she made during her treatments helped her get through, along with the medical professionals in the region.

“They were the people I had to rely on and they were all so wonderful.”

With cancer death rates finally taking a downward turn nationally as well as locally, Valente said she hopes the fight against the life-altering disease is beginning to turn the corner.

Valente offered some words of advice for anyone diagnosed with the disease.

“Get your treatments and don’t be afraid to take your chemo,” she said.

“You can deal with it. Tell yourself, ‘This is going to save my life,’ No matter how hard, you have to focus on the positive and realize that you just have to do it.”

And Valente said if patients put their heart into beating the disease, they have a much better chance of being rewarded with a cancer-free body.

“It changes your life a lot and you do worry about it coming back, but you also begin to appreciate things a lot more, like just waking up every day.”

And, of course, playing with her grandchildren, Madison and Chase.

“After you beat it, you think that maybe you are here for a purpose and no matter how hopeless things seemed once, you know you are alright.”