Jill Ramsey, 39-year-old mother of three, nearly died Tuesday.
Quick action by ambulance personnel, called to Ramsey’s home in Bronson, saved her life.
Her breathing had become labored, and stopped altogether, the result of her body’s rejection of anti-infection medicine.
A Home Health nurse on the scene called for an ambulance. Crews were able to flush in a second type of medication to cause the swelling to subside. She was breathing normally shortly thereafter.
“I’ll never give up,” Ramsey said Wednesday from the home of her friend, Iolan Debbie Jones. “But I thought I was going to see Jesus that night.”
The infection has ravaged her body since her most recent mastectomy, capping a brutal 15-month period riddled with surgeries, chemotherapy treatments, regular trips to the doctor and now her most recent diagnosis of having methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Ramsey’s story is perhaps as much a cautionary tale as one of her dogged determination laced with dashes of despair.
She had no desire to speak with the Register until Jones called a reporter on her behalf. She spoke reluctantly in a wide-ranging conversation about life as a cancer sufferer.
RAMSEY FIRST felt the lump in her right left breast in November 2010.
She told no one, not even her husband, Frank Jr., about it.
She was hoping it was a benign and would somehow “go away” in no small part because the Ramseys did not have health insurance.
Instead, the cancer grew and by May of 2011, the lump had grown considerably.
“I told my husband about it on a Sunday night,” she recalled. “He told me I needed to see somebody the next day.”
She did and a biopsy tested positive for cancer.
The resulting mastectomy of her left breast also showed 17 lymph nodes that tested positive for cancer.
