Survivor story: Nancy Fields

Nancy Fields almost skipped her annual mammogram in 2013 because all of her previous mammograms had come back negative, showing no sign of breast cancer.

"I wasn't planning to go in for a mammogram that year, but I had an appointment with my gynecologist and she said that I'd better go because, as you get older, your chances [of getting breast cancer] get higher. It's a good thing I listened to her," Fields says.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2013.

"I got the news when I was outside with my husband planting bulbs that were going to come up the next year," Fields says. "I got the phone call and was kind of in shock at first, like I guess everyone [who gets that kind of news] is."

Fields says her faith in God helped her believe she would survive the cancer diagnosis.

"I've always been a woman of faith and I've always prayed a lot," she says. "At first, I told my husband that I wasn't going to be able to see the bulbs we had just planted come up. But then I heard a small voice inside me say, 'Oh, yea, of little faith.' And then I heard that same small voice inside of me say it again. I know that was God's voice telling me to have faith. I also saw a big, beautiful rainbow one day when I was crossing the bridge from Illinois to Missouri on my way to the hospital, and I knew that God was telling me that I was going to be OK."

Fields had radiation and a lumpectomy, but did not require chemotherapy.

"Everything was relatively easy and went really smoothly," she says. "And, I had a really great support system."

She attributes her success in beating breast cancer to that support system.

"I have faith in God, a great team of doctors and nurses, and my wonderful husband, John, and my daughter, Melissa," she says.

Fields, who will be 70 in February, is retired and lives in Jonesboro, Illinois. She and her husband will soon relocate to Lake Placid, Florida.

"I want to live where it's warmer," she says.