Hope Lives Here
Fighting Stage IV Cancer, and Living Against the Odds
By Stephanie Garcia
The offices at Express Employment Professionals are unlike any
others in the Roseville business complex. The walls are painted in bright,
clean green and blue hues. Each area has a trinket of relaxation—a Zen garden,
a Buddha statue, and a meditation frog. There are inspirational quotes in
beautiful letters scribed on the walls, and the light shines throughout the
open floor plan. That’s how the owners, Eric and Jenny Beard, wanted it—happy, welcoming,
a peaceful and productive environment. After all, they are in the business of
getting people jobs in an economy that hasn't been so kind.
 |
| Jenny Beard, March 2013 for Bonnie Magazine |
I walk over to a wall of thank-you cards, photos and letters.
It’s a cheerful area, just as the rest of the office seems. I can’t help but
smile. The energy in the office is lively, carefree and a place that I would
like to visit again.
From the colorful ambiance to the kudos on the poster board
to the happy employees, everything is full of positivity. It’s hard to believe
that the reason I am there is to interview one of the owners who is battling
stage IV breast cancer.
I sit down and rethink my approach to this interview.
Initially, I assumed that with stage IV cancer, Jenny Beard is battling for her
life, and she might not have much time. She’s a mother, a wife and a business
owner and she has a heart of gold. She’s inspired many with her dedication to
her work and her devotion to her family. I had prepared to interview a dying
woman. But that all changed when the door opened again.
In walked a beautiful blonde, wearing a flowing black skirt,
scoop-neck, pink lacey blouse and knee-high leopard print, high heel boots.
She’s carrying paperwork, a large bag, and a plate of what appears to be
homemade, pink cupcakes. Her make-up is flawless and her smile is wide. Surely
this can’t be her. This isn't a woman who is dying of cancer. This is a woman
who’s full of life.
“Hi,” says Jenny Beard. “Come on in, sorry I’m late.” She
thinks I care. She’s so sweet. I already love her.
We go into a conference room where Jenny tells me she
doesn't know why she was chosen for this story. “There’s nothing special about
me. I just have cancer and I’m trying to fight it, and I really think there’s a
lot more I could be doing,” she says.
We skip the informalities and begin to chat like
girlfriends. Jenny tells me her story, and our parallels shock me. We both have
teenagers and toddlers. We are both hard-working, go-getters. We share a quick
sense of humor, a sales management background, 12-year old wedding rings, and
we are about the same age. She is someone I am drawn to immediately. It’s hard
to put into words why – but she radiates with a light that I can feel and as
silly as it might seem, I can see it too.
Jenny is busy. Too busy for cancer. She has three children
at home, a thriving business with her husband and one child attending college
in southern California. She has a two-page to-do list with check marks, and
it’s only 10:00 a.m. She tells me she feels she needs to be doing more. This
round of chemotherapy has taken a lot out of her, including her hair and she’s
frustrated that she’s been forced to take a behind the scenes approach to
working through chemo treatments. It doesn't sit well with her.
I tell her that I don’t know where to begin. She has taken
me by surprise. She reassures me, as she will do several more times during our
two-hour talk. “Well, I’ll tell you that even before this, {‘this’ being stage
IV metastasized breast cancer} I thought I had my own story.”
In 2004, Jenny and her husband took a leap of faith. They moved
their family of five to Rocklin and opened a staffing company from scratch.
With his experience in accounting and hers in sales and marketing, it was great
match. “We put everything on the line to open this business,” she says. There
was no income, they had two small children, and a ten-year old, and they were
determined to make it succeed.
The plan was working, for about seven months. In March of
2005, upon a routine self-exam, Jenny felt a lump in her left breast. The
diagnosis was a slow-growing, breast cancer in two different quadrants of her
left breast. She was 32.
The diagnosis was scary, but the doctors were optimistic. “I
felt like there’s nothing I can do about it, so I would always take the worst
case scenario, which was death, and work backwards from that,” Jenny says. The cancer was caught so early that it didn't
worry her too much. On May 5, 2005, she received a single mastectomy. With her
positive attitude and cancer in remission, she felt ready to take on the world
again. She thought that maybe this happened for a reason; she thought maybe she
would be able to help someone in the future.
In 2005, as the employment market started to plunge, Jenny thought
that maybe her cancer story had inadvertently prepared her to deal with the hit
that her business would take. This scared her more than cancer. “When the
economy crumbled, being that we are in the employment business, we were
scared,” she remembers. “We are a source of encouragement to people who come
here and seek our services, and we didn't have any jobs for them. That was a
crisis. That was scary.”
Although she had worked through her cancer experience, she
never let it affect the business. In doing so, Jenny gained confidence. “We
went through that {breast cancer} as a 6-month old company,” Jenny says. “In my
head, if we went through that, we could take on this economy.”
It was a long process, and there were some tough decisions and
dark days, but as other staffing companies closed their doors for good, the
Beards’ company made it through. To celebrate, they had a small party in 2009
called THINK BIG. “It was kind of an open house,” she says. “We were expecting
30 people to come, and were amazed when 150 showed up.” It’s clear to me that Jenny
puts as much positivity into her business as she does in her life, so of course
it was a success.
That year, Jenny and her husband were in a good place. The
kids were 20, 10 and 8 years old. Life and business were stable and good things
were on the horizon. But with a quick getaway to Las Vegas, the couple soon found
out they were pregnant.
A little boy was born in May of 2010, but as soon as she got
home from the hospital, she began to have vision problems. Jenny was soon
diagnosed with a rare eye disorder called a macular hole. “With a macular hole,
if you don’t fix it, you go blind,” Jenny says. She knew she had been though
worse, so she went forward with a procedure to correct the hole. A vitrectomy consists
of placing a gas bubble behind her retina. The procedure would only work if she
kept her head down, looking at her toes, for seven days during recovery. “The
bubble acts like a stint and I had to eat and drink while looking down,” she says.
“This was harder to recover from than my mastectomy.”
Unfortunately, it was about to get a lot harder. One side
effect from the delicate surgery is a retinal detachment. The solution is to
have another vitrectomy. Within six months, that happened—twice. To make
matters worse, between her second and third surgeries, she was diagnosed with
cancer—again.
What started out as an in-patient procedure to remove a
cyst, ended up being a cancerous tumor. The diagnosis was grim. Jenny had stage
IV metastatic breast cancer. The cancer had metastasized to her back, lungs,
glands, and neck.
According to The American Cancer Society, recent
introductions of new chemotherapy drugs have significantly improved survival of
patients diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, but the statistics remain at
about a 20% survival rate at 5 years. “To me that meant I had a 20% chance of
being alive in 5 years,” she says. That was two-and-a-half years ago.
“It’s an ugly stat, it seems unreal. But the worst thing
that can happen is I can die.” We both take a moment. This is the same thought
process she had before, but this time, it feels heavier.
“With metastasized cancer, they don’t go after every tumor
in your body.” Instead, she has endured three rounds of chemo, a clinical
trial, and hormone therapy. So far, none of her treatments have been
successful. The cancer has now moved to her pancreas and her liver. Once again,
she sees the lighter side of bad. “The good thing is that it’s a slow-moving
cancer.”
Jenny is on her fourth round of chemo. She will find out her
results at the end of March. True to her optimistic nature, she sees the good
in the chemo failure. “I don’t have time to dwell on the ‘what-ifs’ because I
don’t know. Not knowing is the hard part.”
No knowing can’t be put on a to-do list. It can’t be planned
for. To someone like Jenny, not knowing can be overwhelming. “There’s so much I
want and need to do – there’s kids, a business, things I want to do … I need to
start taking a lot more pictures.”
I feel like I might lose it. I can’t imagine being in her
shoes. But then she says something that makes me want to jump across the table
and hug her. “You know, people have it much worse than I do,” she smiles. “I’ve
experienced so many blessings along this journey.”
She made a vision board with her employees. “We did it as an
office experiment together in 2008.” She wanted to see Celine Dion, she wanted
to see her daughter go to college, she wanted a new bed, and she wanted to go
on a cruise to Alaska.
As time has passed, many of her visions on her board came to
fruition. She got a new bed, and she not only got to see Celine Dion in
concert, but the singer also posted a video of Jenny and her family on her own
Facebook site. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j3gizTDVKQ to watch
the video). Her eldest daughter is in college and last year, her friends and
family surprised her on her 40th birthday with a surprise party—including a cruise
to Alaska. “I was surprised with the party, but then they presented my husband and
I with a cruise to Alaska.” Jenny pauses to remember that night. She smiles.
“That was a really amazing surprise.”
She tells me it’s undeserving. She tells me this often. The
woman who shines so brightly on others cannot accept the same love back. It’s
hard for her to see how she exudes hope, but I see it. “I don’t know why people
think I’m inspiring,” she says often. “I don’t think I’m doing things different
than anyone else in this situation.”
I try to reassure her. She has been through so much. I know
I am not this strong. I think I would have thrown in the towel. “I guess I
don’t think about that, ever.”
This is true. The woman who continues to work, spend time
with her family and plan for the future finds a sort of reprieve at her weekly Chemo
sessions. Once, she told the nurse “I really just like sitting here. I can just
relax. You probably hear that all the time.” The nurse was surprised and said no,
not really.
Her unpretentiousness is sweet. Her outlook is hopeful. She
believes in karma and God and refuses to talk about dying. “There are people
who can live with this disease for many, many years, like 15 years,” she says. “I
truly am at peace with whatever happens … but I believe a miracle is about to
happen.”
Before this interview, I thought people with stage IV breast
cancer were sick, in pain, terminal and perhaps waiting to die. But everything
changed with this interview. Jenny is a beacon of hope. I interviewed a woman
who loves life, her children, her marriage and her company, and even with a
seemingly devastating diagnosis, this woman is living—more than many of us are,
and that is inspiring.
