Jack and Jill Beat Back Cancer

For siblings Jack Staples and Jill Mathis, cancer was nearly an inevitable truth.

Staples was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2006.

He lost his wife, Karen, to breast cancer in 2002.

Mathis was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2006.

Another sister, Bobbie, is undergoing radiation treatment at the moment for breast cancer.

There's been aunts, uncles and other family members to be diagnosed with cancer, as well.

That's a lot for one family.

"It's kind of personal to us," Mathis said, "and, we'd like to see a cure. Everybody would like to see a cure, but with grandchildren, you'd really want to see one."

Before getting her diagnosis, Mathis thought maybe she would be the exception. Her initial thoughts, she said:

"It couldn't happen to me. It's not going to be me."

"I knew, I knew I was going to beat it," she added. "And, I've had several other cancers over the years, but I'm still going to beat it. It's not going to beat me.

"You know, you just have to suck it up and go on."

Her brother, Jack Staples, said he'd gone to see a doctor because he was having foot trouble. His feet were swelling, and that seemed reason enough to go get a check up.

"It had nothing to do with cancer," he said of that visit. "If I hadn't gone for the foot problem, I might have died because I don't go to the doctor very often."

He then got a call at home regarding cancer, and he took to the Internet to read up about. What he read, said he would slowly lose his ability to recall information, and that he might experience stumbles and falls.

"I thought, 'Well, I did fall down the other day,'" he said. "And, then I realized it was the wrong thing."

He'd inadvertently landed on information about Alzheimer's disease. The levity of the blunder was welcome, though.

Mathis cautions against using the Internet to diagnosis yourself, or to look up complications and other cancer-related information. "It will scare you to death," she said.

The No. 1 advice Staples has for newly diagnosed cancer patients: "Don't panic."

"You don't have to run and get the first treatment you see," he adds. "Consider everything, and then make sure it's the right treatment."

See also:

• Providence Christian Girls Keep Memory of Beloved Coach Alive (Part 2)
• Mom: 'We are Actively Fighting' Cancer (Part 1)
• In Pictures: 2013 Lilburn Relay Rally

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