Denice Burnett thought somebody must have made a mistake. She had gone to the doctor for a routine mammogram and the nurse called her to say it had to be redone.

“I have never had a problem, and I have always had the mammograms,” said Burnett, 48. “I didn’t have that many risk factors for it. When they called back and said get it redone, I thought somebody must have messed something up in the office. I never dreamed in a million years.”

That was 2014. Now, she is a survivor of breast cancer. The feeling, Burnett said, is special.

“When someone says they are a cancer survivor, it has a special meaning for me,” she said. “You kinda feel a bond with them when you hear that. Really, it is a journey that not everybody takes, fortunately.”

Having to deal with a life-threatening was no easy task for Burnett. Fortunately, she had a caring physician, a supportive family and effective medication.

“I had an oncologist who was just absolutely wonderful,” she said, talking about Dr. “Bo” Hrom. “He was just so patient and explained everything. I would go in to his office, and, of course, I had my husband, my mom and my daddy in the entourage.”

The planned course of treatment was chemotherapy, a lumpectomy and then radiation, Burnett said.

“When I went in, Dr. Hrom said we were going to have to do chemotherapy first because it was an aggressive type of cancer,” she said. “However, they had some new drugs out. Dr. Hrom said, ‘Lucky for you, not two months ago, we wouldn’t have had this drug available.’

Burnett’s tensest moment was waiting to go for the first chemo treatment.

“Of course, it ended up fine, I certainly don’t want to do it again, but it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be,” she said. “You don’t know how it’s going to affect you.”

Burnett said the chemo treatment turned out to be better than expected.

“That worked wonderfully because by the time they got in for the lumpectomy, they couldn’t find it,” she said. Although the cancer was an aggressive type, the chance of recurrence is smaller with the immunotherapy drugs.”

Burnett has returned to see Hrom and the radiologist every six months. January will mark the fifth year since Burnett began treatments.

Burnett said surviving breast cancer has also changed her attitude.

“It makes you more appreciative of the little things,” she said. “I’ll stop and see little things along the way and realize to be thankful for the little things. I think every season of life prepares for the next season, whether you want to go through it or not.”

Burnett, who said she was not outgoing while she was growing up, has been able to speak freely to more people.

“It’s not a journey that anyone wants to go on, but you just have to go in there with a good attitude and have a good time,” she said. “One of the funniest things that happened was when they called to give me the results of my biopsy. She actually called me about 6 o’clock that night and was about to walk into a School Board meeting. I knew it was her, but I thought she was just calling to tell me everything’s fine.

“So, I just slipped out and answered it. Well, she wasn’t going to tell me that. I got into one of the book rooms at the middle school, Ben was texting me and the nurse knew I wasn’t handling it well. She has known me forever. She said, ‘OK, this what you’re going to do: You need to go on, you need to talk to the Good Lord, you need to put your big girl pants on and do what you need to do.’ So I said, ‘OK, I got it.’

Denice is the wife of longtime educator Dr. Ben Burnett, the Dean of William Carey University’s School Education. Ironically, his mother is a breast cancer survivor. “She had had it quite some years ago, before we were married,” Denice said.

Ben Burnett is the chairman of this year’s Men in Pink fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. The gala celebration for the 15 men who are involved in the event will be held Oct. 11 at Southern Oaks. Tickets are available from the participants.

Ben, who participated in the event last year, is not “a pink person,” Denice said.

“He was very willing to do that last year, and he was not a ‘pink’ person,” she said. “He has since been willing to do it. He said, ‘You sat in the chemo chair, so the least I can do is wear pink.’”

Burnett said she is always willing to talk with someone about surviving breast cancer.

“There’s always something good that comes out of it,” she said. “There’s always a platform to build your faith and your strength, to tell your story and to glorify God. That’s what you have to look for in it.”