Madie McVay thought her doctor was joking when she asked her to come to an after-hours appointment on her birthday. The Fourth of July 2019 visit turned out to be no laughing matter: McVay had Stage 4 lung cancer.
“It was a shock,” recalled McVay, a Poplar Bluff resident since 1988. “I cried for three days. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve always been very health conscious. I noticed I was getting real tired, but I didn’t let that stop me.”
The cancer had spread to McVay’s bones. Yet in a remarkable turn of events that has amazed even her doctors — and repeated itself multiple times over the course of her treatment — the faithful member of First Baptist Church keeps going. She has outlived three different prognoses and even a forecast she wouldn’t live to see another holiday.
McVay, whose prognosis is terminal, attributes her ability to fight cancer to God’s grace and a history of hard times. She came to the U.S. by way of her father, who found her in Germany. She had been born in an orphanage and later entered foster care. McVay’s father brought her stateside, where he adopted her.
“I believe this was preparing me for what was to come, and all the things that I deal with on a daily basis,” McVay said. “It made me stronger. It made me the person who I am today. I love people, and I love to help people, to do for people. I love to witness to people about the Lord, and especially those who are sick, not to give up. God has a purpose for everything.”
Cancer still cuts deep marks — on the body and the soul. Throughout her experience, McVay has seen cancer eat through her hip bone and, at various times, enter her blood, her tailbone and one of her ribs. It has constricted her breathing. She has 26 tumors in her chest — spanning nearly all 27 of the lymph nodes in that part of the body. She’s endured days on end of radiation and months of chemotherapy. “That was pretty rough,” McVay said. “That was really, really rough, especially the last series.” At times, she felt she couldn’t walk another step.
So she leans on her faith.
Although living with cancer during the coronavirus pandemic limited some contact with others, McVay says, she continued to undergo treatment at Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. Because she already wore a mask everywhere to protect herself, it didn’t bother her to don a mask and keep up regular attendance at church services and Wednesday night meals. McVay provides meals for First Baptist Church’s Joy group — for seniors 50 and older — and also oversees funeral dinners for family and friends.
“That’s what keeps me going,” McVay said. “I’m a servant.”
Her focus on helping others isn’t without reward: At a recent church meal featuring open-faced roast beef, pork loin, chicken and mashed potatoes, McVay earned second place in a dessert contest with her sugar-free strawberry cheesecake. Yet again, McVay managed to hit the sweet spot.
She gives enormous credit to her nurses and oncologists, Benjamin Goodman and Mark Meadors, for their persistence in pursuing every option for treatment. “I could not have any better doctors,” McVay said. Early in her treatment, she recalled, Goodman asked if they could pray together. She found that moment especially meaningful. It affirmed her decision to seek treatment at Saint Francis. Of Meadors she said, “He wouldn’t quit.”
McVay continues to stay active despite her family’s wishes that she stay closer to home. She is empathetic and suspects many other families feel the same way when their loved ones face such a frightening disease. They don’t want them to hurt themselves. Yet she insists it’s important for her to stay in motion.
“You’ve got to keep living,” McVay said. “If you sit and do nothing, you’re going to waste away.”
In days past, McVay thought nobody would come to her funeral. She didn’t know if she had any friends. Not so any longer. McVay knows she has a purpose and a community of people who care about her — and vice versa. Whenever the time comes, she hopes she is remembered as someone who loved people.
“God put me on this earth to serve mankind and to share my heart with them,” McVay said. She’s been told she is “so stubborn I can’t die,” but she knows better. She lives each day as it comes and keeps planning ahead.
“But if it doesn’t come, it doesn’t come,” McVay said. “You’ll be in glory, you’ll be with the Lord, you’ll be in heaven, and then someone else will come along and take over for you.”
She encourages other cancer patients to trust God and know that it will be okay. People might say they understand how cancer patients feel, but she’s clear that’s impossible unless they’ve taken that journey themselves.
Nonetheless, McVay encourages patients and caretakers alike. She comforts them. She prays with them if they are open to it.
They soon come to recognize that McVay — in person and in action — embodies the words of one of her doctors.
“He says I’m a miracle,” McVay said.