Everyone has a story to tell. It can be when they helped to win the big game, were accepted into their top choice college, got engaged or had children. One local 25 year old has a story of how she overcame cancer not once but twice.
Mary Ellen Bowen is just like any other person her age. She finished college and is working in her field of choice, but her teenage years were trying.
In 1995 at age 11, Bowen was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease lymphoma.
“My main concern as a preteen was ‘Am I going to lose my hair?’” Bowen said. “My parents explained that it was a possibility.”
Her next question was one that no one wants to ask and fears a certain answer will come.
“I asked if I was going to die,” Bowen said. “My parents said no. Then, I was fine.”
The call that gave Bowan the news came from her family doctor, Dr. Cox. Since he knew the family, he called on a Saturday and told them.
“I have a first cousin (that was diagnosed with leukemia at age four) who went to St. Jude’s,” Bowen said. “In three days, we were there.”
Dr. Cox performed a biopsy and surgery on her. She took treatments at St. Jude’s and at Morehouse General Hospital’s emergency room.
Bowen remembers doing chemotherapy for three or four months the first time. Next came a month of radiation and three of four more months of chemotherapy.
After a couple of chemo treatments at Morehouse General, Bowen became the first patient of Bastrop’s oncology clinic.
“I had my own room and bed,” Bowen said. “I did about a year of treatment. They put me in remission.”
She went for checkups every three months at first, then six months and eventually a year.
At 18 years old, Bowen had already been released from St. Jude’s and was attending college at the University of Louisiana at Monroe for a nursing.
She felt a knot on her neck and went to the doctor to have it checked out. The knot was on her thyroid; doctors did not believe it was cancerous but decided to take it out anyway.
The doctors still did not believe it to be cancerous until after results came back.
The knot was actually follicular thyroid cancer. This time, the 19 year old did not have to take chemotherapy but stayed in the hospital for seven days.
“(The doctors) highly thought (the cancer) was due to radiation from when I had Hodgkin’s,” Bowen said. She went back to St. Jude’s since she had been a patient there and was released again at age 20.
Since then, Bowen has graduated from ULM and worked at Morehouse General Hospital for seven months. She is now working in a doctor’s office in Monroe. She also participates in American Cancer Society events.
“I am a LPN now and working on getting my RN degree,” Bowen said. “I’m doing an online degree. I hope to be an oncology nurse to give other people their chemo.”
She said she had no clue when she was younger what she wanted to do and “would not have known” if she had not been diagnosed.
“I think it was a blessing from God,” Bowen said. “I would not be the same person today and neither would my family.”
She said her role models are Peggy Skaines, an oncology nurse, and Judy Hilton, who worked at the clinic she went to.
“I wanted to be just like them,” Bowen said. “I think God sent them to me.”
She also attributes her recovery to her family.
“I could not have done it without my family,” Bowen said. “They went through it with me.”
Her parents are Patricia and Terry Bowen. She also has two siblings: Stephen Bowen and Laura Phillips.
Bowen still goes for checkups throughout the year for both cancers and has seen no sign of a relapse.
“Cancer does not mean death,” Bowen said. “To me, it means hope. God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. You’re special, because you will have a story to help someone else who was diagnosed.”
