CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) – Even though she’s now cancer-free, the anger shows when Flower Scalia, 35, remembers being diagnosed.
Raised in California, she had been living in Chattanooga for almost 20 years, working as a dental assistant and helping her husband at the shoe repair shop his family has operated since 1906. She knew she was sick – she was nauseous and losing weight – but her doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her.
“He blew me off for nine months,” Scalia said in a recent interview. It wasn’t until July 2012 she learned she had colon cancer.
The next year was difficult.
First, she had chemotherapy and radiation to shrink the cancer, but the treatments made her sick.