Faith, Family and Friendship: A Story of Survival in the Face of Cancer

On Dec. 11,2011, Kim and Matt Hunter were paused at a traffic light at Fairgrounds and Front Street in Midland as a car approached at high speed from behind. In a matter of seconds, a rear-end collision changed the course of their lives forever. The driver, who had been texting, never even looked up.

Kim was badly hurt in the accident. Rushed to the hospital for a severe hip injury, she spent the next several days in Midland before being referred to a doctor in Dallas. That car wreck, she says, may have saved her life.

The Hunters had been in Midland for the afternoon visiting doctors Kim knows from 10 years working as a pharmaceutical representative in Midland.

Always an active person, she began experiencing pain in her hip in September of 2011, particularly after running or jogging. After a couple of months, she’d put herself on a walker, and after an incident descending the stairs in her San Angelo home, Kim Hunter visited the ER and a doctor at Shannon Medical Center to try to get answers for her pain.

Initially, she was treated for a sports injury, however after a tumor was discovered on her hip in December, Hunter was referred to a Dallas orthopedic oncologist who did a bone biopsy. On Dec. 7, she was diagnosed with cancer.

While in Midland, the Hunters had been trying to ascertain the cancer type when the accident happened.

“I think the car accident was God’s intervention to get me into the hospital,” Hunter says.

After few days, she flew back to Dallas, where doctors immediately confirmed she had breast cancer stage four. Kim had been breastfeeding at the time of diagnosis; through the milk in her breasts she’d never even felt the small lump that had grown there. Luckily, her cancer had not spread to any vital organs.

“It hadn’t spread anywhere except my bones,” Hunter says,  “but it was all over my skull, my rib bones, my back bones, my hip bones, my leg bones, my arm bones; you name it, it had spread.”

In Dallas, Kim was told that she was HER2 and estrogen positive, which meant that doctors had diagnosed the cause of her illness.

“They were like, ‘That’s a very aggressive form of cancer, but that’s a good thing,’” Hunter says, “’because there is medicine to treat HER2 positive breast cancer.’”

Over the next eight months, Kim Hunter went through the gamut. Her ovaries were removed almost immediately on Dec. 17, and she started radiation on her hip, which was broken from the car accident. She then had a port put into her chest so that she could begin chemotherapy, and underwent six treatments over a span of six months.

The necessity to constantly commute uprooted her family for the better part of a month, when she, her husband Matt, son Hodge, and daughter Holt moved to Dallas to live in a rent house. But even from the very beginning, things weren’t the same.

“My family had to move in with me. It changed not my life and my husband’s life and my kids’ life, but my mother’s life, my mother-in-law’s life, and my sister’s life. They all rotated…one would stay two weeks, one would stay three weeks, one would stay two weeks, and they would just rotate out,” Kim says. “It changed everyone’s life.

“The moment they say ‘you have breast cancer,’ everything changes. You’re doing all these things like clothes, groceries, cleaning—I couldn’t do any of it anymore, somebody else had to do it…we all were fighting this battle,” Hunter says.

Throughout her fight with cancer, Kim Hunter had a strong support system. With her family on her side and the Mother’s of Preschoolers group at Glen Meadow Baptist, plus letters, text messages and prayers from friends, family and even strangers, Kim had a strong backing to help her along the way. But above all, she says, she felt an obligation to survive for her family.

“I looked at it as a job,” Kim says. “This is my job to live for my children. I am 36 years old, I have a husband and two kids and I have got to live, and I will beat this cancer.”

Kim admits to having always been an aggressive person, a trait she says now has not only helped her through treatment, but that pushes her to be an advocate for breast cancer awareness.

This strength, Kim says, was tested along the way, and that there were times when she felt she may not make it, but she identifies her battle with cancer as having a purpose. That purpose, she says is to help others facing the challenge, and it’s a directive God has given her.

“I was always a Christian, but I didn’t really get, per se,” Kim says. “I mean, I had always gone to church, tried to do the right thing, but then, it had changed. People prayed for me and even my doctor was like this is unheard of. I know God was with me. I know Jesus healed me.”

After her chemo was over, Kim’s PET scan revealed that she was completely clear. Her doctors had warned her that even after treatment, she would still have lesions, but to their amazement she had shown remarkable recovery.

Kim Hunter is still in remission and undergoing treatment monthly. Each month, she receives injections through the port in her chest to fight the cancer in her body.

Throughout her struggle, she never gave up hope and thanks God, her family and the uncountable friends, acquaintances and strangers that have helped her along the way with encouraging words, meals and emotional support.

The road was not an easy one, and even today, Hunter says every day is a challenge. There were times when she felt like she wasn’t going to make it, but Hunter says those aren’t the days she wants to focus on.

“For me it was double whammy,” Kim says. “You’ve got a broken hip, you lose your hair and you look like crap.

“My kids would come in and I would be so sick from chemo, but my kids are little and they would come into the bedroom. I laid in this bedroom for eight months, so sick, and I would just put on a happy face,” she says, fighting back tears.

“It’s horrible,” she says, “but you’ve got to get through it.”

That push is what Kim Hunter hopes to inspire in other woman fighting the same battle.

“Please get informed,” she says. “Know that the hospitals work for you and the doctors work for you. Get the big explanation of it. Be informed on everything you need to know.”

And know that it can affect anybody, she adds. There seems to be a misconception that breast cancer is an old lady’s disease, but it can affect anyone. Kim was 36 when she was diagnosed, and met many others along the way as young or younger than she is.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and there are numerous activities going on in the U.S. and locally to advocate awareness in women and men alike. Kim Hunter’s is just one story of a survivor; don’t let the inspiration to fight or share stop here.