Columbia woman clings to faith through breast cancer, tornado

COLUMBIA, Miss. (WDAM) - One local woman courageously battled two fights, saying God is what carried her through both.

It’s hard to tell by her contagious laugh and bright smile, but in October of 2015, Regina Ford was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. According to the CDC, triple negative is a kind of breast cancer that does not have any of the three receptors that are commonly found in the disease. This means it can be harder to treat.

“They really weren’t looking for me to come through as well as I did,” Ford said.

However, that did not stop her from staying optimistic and bravely fighting.

“Yes, I went through the crying period for probably about 10 minutes,” Ford said. “It took me about 10 minutes before it was like, ’What are you doing? It’s going to be OK. God’s got you.’”

Through eight rounds of chemotherapy and 35 rounds of radiation, she kept her faith.

“All I can say is... I just trusted God,” Ford said.

Staying positive through the battle gained her a reputation at the Caner Center at Forrest General Hospital.

“They called me smiley because I was always smiling,” Ford said. “I went in with a smile, I came out with a smile. I mean, there wasn’t really nothing else for me to do.”

In May of 2016, she beat breast cancer. When she found out, she was ecstatic.

“Hallelujah,” Ford said. “When they said, ’This is your last one. You are now cancer free.’ Thank you Jesus. Just thank you Jesus, that’s all I could say.”

Unfortunately, breast cancer wasn’t the only battle heading Ford’s way. The tornadoes of April 19 were heading straight for her house.

“We got the wind and stuff because it took my shed and punched holes into my bedroom,” Ford said. “So we had to redo my bedroom. Had water pouring out the ceiling fan. Something hit that window and blew it out. Glass blew all over here.”

Although she’s still working to clean the mess the storm left, she remains thankful it was not worse.

“We were good,” said Ford. “We were actually blessed. We were actually blessed because it could have been so, so much worse.”

Copyright 2020 WDAM. All rights reserved.