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Jo Meagan, a Tennessee Tech student and 2004 graduate of
Huntingdon High School, relaxes in the home of her mother,
Roxie Dublin of McKenzie. She plans to return to the
Cookeville-based university in the fall after completing
radiation therapy. Jo Meagan Mansfield is proof
positive of the relentlessly impartial nature of cancer.
Beautiful, vivacious, young— without a hint of cancer in
her family history—she was struck with Hodgkins disease just
as she'd dipped her toes into the waters of life away from her
family and the friends she grew up with in Huntingdon.
The becomingly freckled, girl-next-door, brunette beauty
curls up in a big chair of the Magnolia Street home she shares
with mom, Roxie, and step-dad, Keith Dublin, in
McKenzie. Now 19, she had moved to McKenzie in the seventh
grade but continued going to school in Huntingdon where
her dad, Mike Mansfield, was football coach. Mike and wife
Bertlyn Mansfield live in Camden.
It only made sense to continue her education in Huntingdon,
as Jo Meagan explains, "I liked it—and since it's a football
town and my dad was football coach, it was fun—but I'm glad to
be done with high school."
 Asked
about her extracurricular activities at Huntingdon High, she
recites a long list of accomplishments: "I was class vice
president all the way through, yearbook, chorus, Student
Council, Beta Club... and everything else there was. No..."
she jokes, laughing as she thinks back, then continues,
"math and science clubs, fellowship of Christian Students,
Spanish Club."
Her favorite activity was working with the yearbook.
"That's the thing I miss, anyway," she says. "It was like the
only thing where I could be creative because I didn't
take art classes."
By the time she graduated in 2004, Jo Meagan was ready to
spread her wings and fly though, she admits, "It was a little
scary at first. All my friends were going to (The
University of Tennessee at) Martin."
Jo Meagan chose Tennessee Tech University, where she is
pursuing a degree in finance. Located among the rolling
countryside of Middle Tennessee in Cookeville, the school that
began in 1912 as the University of Dixie has an architecture
that appeals to her: "It's an old campus and for a big
school that's unusual, because most places tend to tear down
old buildings," she says, before delivering the clincher,
"And I like it because it's not close to home. It's close
enough to come home if wanted to, but I liked getting away...
I guess I just wanted to see what it was like not to be known
somewhere."
Besides, she'd gained first-hand knowledge of the campus
when she attended Governor's School there the summer of her
junior year of high school and her brother, Marcus, 32, is
among the school's alumni.
The baby of her family, Jo Meagan has two older sisters as
well. Misty Mansfield lives in Gleason and Micki Waugh, like
Marcus, lives in McKenzie.
Away from her family for the first time, she says of her
college experience, "The more I got to know the people there,
I liked it a lot, but I don't think I fully appreciated it
until I had to come back home. It seems like right when I was
getting settled in, I had to go."
After being a member of First Baptist Church in Huntingdon
her "whole life", Jo Meagan was attending Stevens Street
Baptist Church in Cookeville. She had visited a few other
churches before discovering the Stevens Street church with
roommate Maegan Sullivan, whose aunt was a member of the
church.
"They have a big college ministry there," she explains,
telling also how she and Maegan, from Gleason, decided to be
roommates. Maegan, who went to Tennessee Tech to play golf,
was "like brothers and sisters" with Jo Meagan's cousins,
Heath and Kirk Rogers. They figured it was only natural to be
roommates at their new locale.
At Tennessee Tech with roommate
Maegan Sullivan from Gleason, Jo Meagan’s robust appearance
continued to belie her condition, though frequent napping and
itchy skin, as well as enlarged lymph nodes, soon had her
seeking medical advice.
Jo Meagan blamed the water when her skin began itching in
her new community; then she noticed "knots" in her neck.
"There was one really big one and a few others," she says.
"After awhile, I got some under my arm, too."
She was also unaccountably tired. "I took a lot of naps and
all my friends made fun of me for it," she laughs.
In time, she visited the school's infirmary, where blood
tests revealed nothing extraordinary. Advised to consult her
family doctor, during Thanksgiving break Jo Meagan paid a
visit to Dr. Jerry Atkins in Huntingdon. He prescribed a trial
round of antibiotics, since the lymph nodes typically swell
when the body is fighting infection.
"So I was on those a month," she relates. "I had to go back
at Christmas break to see Dr. Atkins when they hadn't gone
down... I think he knew what it was then, but wasn't going to
tell me, so he referred me to Jackson."
Even before being referred for a biopsy and bone marrow
sample, Jo Meagan had been doing research into her symptoms
and had come up with her own provisional diagnosis of Hodgkins
disease, but she, too, remained silent.
"I didn't tell mom or anybody," she says, "so I was
mentally prepared, I think I've taken this whole process
better than any family member that I have."
A chat with her dad reveals Jo Meagan was right.
"I was a basket case," he says. "I tried to act like I had
some sense for her benefit."
And in a round robin, Jo Meagan confirms her dad's
scenario.
"Being sick isn't the worst part of all this," she asserts.
"Your parents drive you crazy, and since I'm the baby, I have
more than parents—all my siblings feel the need to protect
me—they take on the parental (role) also."
Thus, he notes, his position as a coach was of little use
for Jo Meagan, who he characterizes as "a really independent
girl, very strong willed.
"She has a lot of faith—and I'm sure she had her moments
tucked away in her bedroom by herself—but from the get-go she
said, 'I'm going to make it through this and be all right',"
he says. "She's had such a positive attitude."
Looking on the bright side himself, Mansfield says he told
his daughter, "If anything good can come out of this, it would
be that you could help somebody else."
"Sure enough," he continues, "about the time she was
halfway through chemotherapy, a little girl from Dresden got
Hodgkins, so Jo Meagan was a big help to her telling her what
to expect... Her experience has helped somebody else already.
I'm so proud of her."
So optimistic was Jo Megan when faced with her own
experience with chemotherapy that she made arrangements to
continue working toward her degree at Bethel during the
semester missed at Tennessee Tech. In fact, she said, the
hardest part of the ordeal was leaving school.
"It's something you do your whole life and then, to just
quit and sit around the house, I would feel worthless—and I
was determined to prove them wrong, the ones that said 'I'm
not sure if you can do it, I'm not sure if you should take
classes.'"
She enrolled in two classes—biology and business law—that
were held Tuesdays and Thursdays. Every Friday she was at St.
Jude's for chemotherapy, frequently spending Thursday night in
Memphis to better meet the early morning appointment. Other
days she kept busy, often visiting friends at U.T. Martin.
"Chemotherapy—I guess I thought it was going to be a major
deal," Jo Meagan says.
It is an ordeal for many. The strong drugs that destroy
rapidly dividing cancer cells also affect normal, noncancerous
cells that divide rapidly, especially the hair follicles
(effecting hair loss), red and white blood cells, platelets
(causing fatigue, dizziness, shortness of breath, and reduced
resistance to infection, and ease of bruising or bleeding),
and cells that line the gastrointestinal system (nausea,
vomiting, and diarrhea.)
Jo Meagan was lucky. "I had 12 weeks of it in cycles of
three every time," she says. "I never got sick but I did feel
bad; one week was the worst. They said I was the token patient
because I never got sick."
And she says, with mixed pride and exasperation, "Mom went
to everyone of them: It didn't matter if a sibling went or
somebody else went, she made sure she was there."
During the three month time period, she wore a permanent
IV, but says it wasn't a hindrance because she couldn't feel
it and it was covered in bandages when not in use.
And if she's lost her hair, it is definitely not apparent
from the lustrous tresses she sported not long after the chemo
came to an end.
As Jo Meagan coped with temporary life changes and came to
grips with the facts of Hodgkins Disease, she was helped along
the way with cards and prayers from friends and churches. She
was especially appreciative of the benefit supper, sponsored
by the teachers of Huntingdon High
School, to help with the expenses of her weekly travels to
Memphis.
"That meant a lot to me," she says, recalling a fun event
where white bean and cornbread dinners could be carried out or
eaten on site.
Jo Meagan embarked last week on the next stage in her
journey toward wellness: radiation. With her cancer caught in
the early stages, irradiation will be confined to her chest,
which was pre-marked with black lines outlining the area of
focus. The limited region should reduce the side effects of
the treatment, which could still include some inflammation.
Her plans are to return to Tennessee Tech in the fall and
"hopefully life back to normal."
"I guess something like this makes you put things in
perspective," she says, summing up the experience. "It makes
you appreciate the smaller things; before I'd take things for
granted and now I'm just thankful to live."
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