June 23, 2017
Anita Ryan is known for her yard full of flowers. Across from the intersection of 12th Avenue and Third Street, the abundance of blooms, bushes and trees almost hide her house.
For the past two and a half years, though, Ryan has hardly been able to do the yard work she loves so much. That’s because she is fighting a devastating battle against ovarian cancer.
“I don’t worry about it,” she says, sitting on her front porch. “What good is it going to do when you’ve got so much to be thankful for? I don’t know if I’m going to get worse or if I’m going to get better, but I do know I’m fine right now.”
Amazingly, despite two years of chemotherapy, Ryan says her only complaint is feeling tired and a lack of energy. She has no shortage of smiles and laughter, though.
“I feel great,” she says.
Ryan was doing yard work in July 2014 when she started hurting in her lower abdomen, and thought she had pulled a muscle. She went to the doctor twice and got two different diagnoses before a CT scan revealed Stage IV cancer in her ovaries. A hysterectomy 40 years ago left her ovaries in place.
“At first I was in shock,” she recalls.
It got worse. Ryan went to a surgeon in Huntsville who opened her up and sewed her up immediately. He told her family she had at most six months to live. That was tough, she says.
“I just believe in God enough that it concerned me but it didn’t tear me all to pieces,” she says. “That’s just the way it is and I have to accept it.”
She accepted it but she didn’t give up. Instead, Ryan went to the Marshall Cancer Care Center and met with Oncologist Dr. Jonathan Storey. He didn’t agree with the first opinion and started Ryan on strong chemotherapy treatments.
“He was very encouraging,” she says. “I just love him to death. They’re all wonderful there.”
She took one treatment a month for six months. Though she lost her hair right away, she has not been sick from the treatments. Some medicine given along with chemo causes drowsiness, making Ryan is unable to drive herself. That has led to a team of wonderful friends volunteering to take turns driving her once a month to her three-treatments a month schedule.
“It’s been wonderful,” she says “They pick me up and sometimes we eat afterwards. Words can’t say how very much I appreciate people driving me, bringing me food and praying for me, most of all.”
Ryan, who has lived in Arab since 1986, has been active at the Senior Center. She worked at Syncro for eight years and at BMTC until she retired in 1999. She then worked seven years at KFC and was a hospital volunteer for 14 years at Marshall Medical North.
“When peopled asked what I did I told them I love what I do because I tell people where to go,” she says, laughing at her sauciness.
Born in Fayette County, Ryan’s family moved to Birmingham when she was 10. After graduating high school, she went to work for a hardware distributor, where she met her husband, Wendell Ryan, now deceased.
The couple moved to Huntsville and eventually built a house on family land in the Ryan community, near his parents. They raised two daughters. Rhonda, a nurse, lives in Birmingham and Rita, who lives in Indiana.
Ryan had to give up work and volunteering after her diagnosis for fear of infection. She said many people have asked her if she moved because her yard doesn’t get the grooming it used to, though she still does what she can.
“I can’t say enough how good people have been to me and how much I appreciate it,” she says. “People are still bringing me food after two and a half years.”