Verona Lambert: “Share that positivity with others.”

A decade ago this October, Verona Lambert was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer.

Lambert grew up in Sikeston, Missouri, attended Southeast Missouri State University and married her high school sweetheart. She moved to Jackson in the mid-1990s, where she had a son and continued her career as a financial counselor and later Director of Student Accounts at Southeast Missouri State University.

Four days after her 44th birthday, Lambert woke to discover she was bleeding from the breast. She had no family history of breast cancer and no other symptoms; cancer wasn’t even on her radar. When she called her OB-GYN that morning, she wasn’t expecting the worst.

A mammogram, biopsy and second opinion later, Lambert was facing a double mastectomy.

She credits a breast reduction surgery some five years prior with saving her life. As the cancer had progressed to stage three and was located close to her chest wall, she says she might not have noticed the bleeding without the previous surgery.

After initially receiving the biopsy results and consulting a physician, she contacted that same plastic surgeon. Lambert was then referred to a breast cancer specialist at St. John’s Mercy Hospital in St. Louis for a second opinion.

“I knew within five minutes of meeting her that she would be my doctor,” Lambert says. Under her doctor’s direction, Lambert scheduled the mastectomy and chemotherapy treatments.

While undergoing chemotherapy, Lambert says she relied on “faith, fun, family and friends” to keep a positive attitude. She named her IV stand “Gertrude.” She brought a best friend to chat in the waiting room. Her radio was always turned to a Sirius XM comedy channel during the drive home.

Much of that positivity was shared with her husband, Lambert says. Her husband always made her laugh — she says he was always cracking jokes with the doctors and nurses.

“That became my whole persona — laughing and having fun, waking up and knowing every day was going to be a good day,” Lambert says.

As she entered treatment, Lambert says she sought to provide a positive community for other patients, as well.

“When I’d go in for chemo, I would always look for the person who wasn’t making eye contact, who was looking down in the dumps. I would choose the seat next to them and strike up a conversation with a stranger,” Lambert says. “That became my M.O.: try to be positive and share that positivity with others.”

Now working as Enrollment Management Systems Administrator at Southeast and adviser to Colleges Against Cancer, Lambert says it’s important to “pay it forward” by helping and educating others. A self-described pessimist before cancer, Lambert says the experience has changed her perspective on life.

“I don’t sweat the small stuff anymore,” Lambert says. “If things happen, they’ll happen. If they don’t, they don’t.”