Two weeks before the first bell rang last August, science teacher Abby Taylor received life-changing news after a routine mammogram: that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Instead of spending her final days of summer break preparing lessons, she was preparing for chemotherapy and months of uncertainty. Taylor scrambled to find a substitute, unsure of what the journey ahead was going to look like.
Taylor got the call from her OBGYN on Saturday, Aug. 3, after her routine mammogram, concerned with what they saw. Taylor went in for a biopsy and within a month they diagnosed her with breast cancer and started a treatment plan at WVU Medicine.
“Before I could begin treatment, I had to meet with three different specialists,” Taylor said. “So you get the call, you find out and then it’s a hurry up and wait, which is really psychologically taxing.”
Throughout her treatments, Taylor played her work absences by ear, unsure of how she’d react to the side effects of chemo, normally giving herself a week in between treatments. With hers being an aggressive cancer, Taylor started to lose her hair due to the potent chemo regiment. She wore a wig that was gifted to her as a part of charity for people who lose their hair due to cancer treatments, which helped her restore some feeling of normalcy back into her life. Now embracing her natural hair a year later, she’s adapting to a ‘new different normal’.
Taylor’s students were very supportive during her fight with cancer, supporting her through her time of need. They went out of their way, collectively scrapping together money, to curate a gift basket, which spoke volumes to Taylor. This reassured her in her time of worry, making her feel that she would be able to lean on them for support. Taylor described her students’ behavior as ‘The Lord looking out for me,’ with them displaying kindness, being very accepting and polite toward Taylor while she was battling cancer.
“The students must have good parents because they were polite and kind and they weren’t cruel,” Taylor said. “They accepted me even though I’m sure I looked crazy a few of those days.”
Her diagnosis also provided her with motivation to try something new in her classroom.
“When this happened, I was kind of faced with like, ‘what will you do when you can’t be here? How will the kids, you know, go on without you?’”
That question led to Taylor’s redesign of her classroom dynamic called an “LED environment,” a way to encourage student leadership. Taylor takes two to four student volunteers to lead the classroom who are willing to help classmates and guide them through the lesson plan. She suspected she would be taking time off but was unsure of the timeline due to uncertainty in how her body would react to the treatments. This dynamic helped the substitutes because if they didn’t understand Schoology or technology, students could still get through assignments and not fall behind. Taylor views this dynamic as a benefit to the students because she believes kids are more influenced by their peers than authority figures, so students can begin to become each other’s encouragement to help keep each other on track, providing the sense of leadership and community.
Fellow science teacher Lisa Berry, who has also battled breast cancer, became a guide for Taylor in her time of struggle. Berry taught Taylor how to look online at medical files and documents to find results and find her score on how likely her cancer was to be dangerous. This guidance helped Taylor in advocating for herself during her treatment plan. Berry also helped Taylor through the mental and emotional challenges Taylor faced with feeling like a different person and in times of struggling to stay positive.
“Mrs. Berry helped me a lot,” Taylor said. “There’s a lot of things the doctors don’t always tell you, but because I was able to talk with Mrs. Berry, she gave me some advice. And there’s no substitute for experience. So having someone there who has already gone through so much of the chemo and the treatment was invaluable.”
Taylor found motivation in her family as well and gives credit to early detection and the doctors at WVU Medicine who helped her. She believes early detection to be one of the primary reasons people should talk about their experience, so people are aware of the importance of regular yearly screenings.
“If I could say a reason to share my story, it would be to encourage people to get early detection so they can get early intervention. It makes a huge difference,” Taylor said.
With detecting the disease so early, Taylor was able to beat cancer much sooner than many. This brought a degree of survivor’s guilt onto Taylor’s heart, causing conflicting emotions and feelings, knowing her chemo only lasted four treatments even though there are others who have been going through treatments for years.
To lower her chances of the cancer returning, Taylor underwent a double mastectomy.
“I can’t understate how important it is to stay positive,” Taylor said. “I’m going to try and, even if it’s difficult, try to get back into having a good attitude about it. You have got to give yourself a moment to grieve because you’ve got to give yourself time, but don’t spend all your time in that headspace.”
