PB woman battles cancer for second time

Kathy Burks Peer of Poplar Bluff beat breast cancer when she was 37, but 19 years later, as a 56-year-old newlywed, she’s waging war with anal cancer.

She was vigilant for many years as a survivor to keep up with exams.

“At first, when I had the breast cancer, I worried all the time,” the mother of two said. “I was doing breast self exams, constantly, asking ‘Oh, my gosh, am I OK?’ If you bump your toe and it gives you a bump, you think is that cancer. I finally quit doing that.”

When she had breast cancer, “my daughter was 16 months old. Now my kids are grown, I don’t have to worry about them, but I just got married,” she said.

Her husband is Tim Peer. Her daughter is Kaitlyn Hoon, and her son Justin Hoon is married to Darby.

“I feel so bad for my husband because we just got married in September and I found out in April I had cancer,” she said. “He’s been amazing taking care of me. He’s great. He’s right here. This is where he wants to be, and I’m so glad.”

Peer is quick to explain she didn’t pay attention to the early warnings.

“I was ignoring symptoms, because I didn’t dream it would be anything like this,” Peer said. “I was sick on our honeymoon a lot. We wanted to go on trails and do different things. We were in the Smoky Mountains and I’d say, ‘I can’t do that.’ So we did avoid things because I didn’t feel up to it.”

When she started having rectal bleeding, “I decided I better have a colonoscopy. It was shocking. I wasn’t expecting that. Especially when I heard the tumor was the size of a golf ball. I said ‘what?’ Oh, my God, this completely flips your life upside down. Going along with your life every day, and all of a sudden, you get this news that changes everything. That’s what happened to us.”

Peer admitted, “I didn’t start thinking this was anything until the bleeding started. Then I thought, that’s a sign of colon cancer. Before, I just kind of ignored symptoms, because I thought everybody goes through some of this stuff. When that happened, and it was so severe, it was making me very weak. I was expecting colon cancer. I wasn’t expecting it to be as bad and as far advanced as it was either. I kept saying, well, stage one, maybe? Well, I hope it’s not, it’s probably a stage one. I was stunned when he said it was three.”

Peer works at the Black River Surgery Center, but will be unable to return until after her treatment.

She had chemotherapy and radiation with her breast cancer, but “I’m doing radiation every day, and I’m wearing a chemo pack. I’m having to do a big chemo. I’ll do radiation for 30 treatments. On my 29th day of radiation, I have to have a chemo treatment again, and wear the pack five days. Hopefully that’s going to take care of it.”

“I saw a surgeon because there was a concern I would have to do a colostomy bag, but I’m not,” she said. “At this point, the doctor is hoping chemo and radiation will shrink the tumor. We’re trying, and hopefully this will take care of it.”

The doctors and their staff “warned me how bad I’m going to feel, how awful it’s going to be. So far, I’ve had a little bit of nausea. I’m real, real tired.”

“They say it’s going to gradually get worse and I won’t be able to sit,” she said.

The Peers are staying in Cape Girardeau during the week in a friend’s guest quarters because the doctors didn’t think she would be able to handle the trip daily.

“I have wonderful, just the best friends and my family,” she said. “Everybody’s been amazing, but it was just so shocking.”

One mistake she feels she made was reading, “which is something I quit doing, because the facts are just scaring,” she said.

Then the doctors “really started saying everything I read, how bad this is going to be. This is a real rough treatment, the type of chemo you’re having is a very rough one, you’re going to be really, really sick,” Peer said. “At first I thought, ‘Oh, I’m probably going to die, because they’re telling me how bad it is, how big it is.”

When she would ask “I’m going to survive, right?,” the doctors would reply, “Well, we’re going do our best to get through it.”

“You know that wasn’t saying to me, ‘yes, you’re going to be all right.’ Then I decided, OK, I don’t care what they say, I’m beating it,” she said emphatically.

They were expecting it to be in the vagina, but it’s not. They have to treat seven lymph nodes and other areas, but “it’s not in the bladder like they thought and worried it might be,” she said.

While Peer understands the doctors, she decided, “I’m determined. I’m going do my best to look on the positive side and quit expecting it to be as bad as they say. I’m going to expect I’m going to be better than they said. I have so many people who are behind me on this. If I let it get to me. I can cry and get upset, but now I’ve started the treatment, I feel stronger than before I started.