www. Char l es tonPhys i c i ans . com | www.Hea l thL i nksChar l es ton . com | 77 When Amy Gesell learned that she had breast cancer, she envisioned herself facing it with positivity, glamour and grace. She pictured herself wearing wigs and scarves like a movie star and accepting her fate with the perfect blend of composure and poise. “I’m going to handle it this way,” she remembers telling herself. But “the cancer highway is littered with good intentions,” she notes now. “Oh, I planned on handling everything like Audrey Hepburn, but I ended up feeling like Brad Pitt in the movie ‘Fight Club.’ Pretty wigs? Nope, I was barfing on the couch with a what looked like a hacky sack on my head,” Gesell joked. “It was not pretty. But those ugly beanies were the only comfort as my body temperature constantly vacillated.” Gesell, 48, learned in January 2021 that she had breast cancer that had reached her lymph nodes but not anywhere else. May 2022 marks the one-year anniversary that her chemotherapy ended. “Telling people you have cancer and seeing their reaction are two of the hardest parts about dealing with it,” Gesell explained. “I sat alone with the news for eight hours before I could even tell my husband.” Gesell talks about a time she met her father for lunch and willed herself to sit as still as possible so her chemo hair wouldn’t fall out; she wasn’t ready to share cancer details. Her father, D. Franklin “Butch” Fritz, was a Green Beret in Vietnam, and he lost his own mother to breast cancer. Stoicism is his default emotion. Mainly because the effects of chemo were so obvious that afternoon, Gesell told father. “‘You be strong’ he told me, almost crying. ‘And when you get scared, get mad,’” Gesell recalled. “When you have cancer, people don’t always say the right things because they just don’t know what to say,” Gesell noted. “One thing I learned throughout the process: You have to overlook the specific words and feel the intentions.” (See What to Say 101) In addition to her go-to doctors – Dr. Gunther Rencken (Walterboro), Dr. Jennifer Beatty (The Breast Place) and Dr. Yanis Bellil (Charleston) – Gesell credits the Charleston and Ehrhardt community of family and friends for lifting her up every time she felt down. Anyone who knows Gesell wouldn’t be surprised that her first example of that community support is tied to her hair. When it comes to personal attributes, Gesell was all about her hair before cancer. “My hair was down to my butt,” she explained. “I would highlight it, turn it blond; I just had a lot of fun.” Gesell would visit the Willow Salon in Charleston every six weeks for hair care and transformations. She became, and remains, close friends with Jade Young Bessent, who now runs Jae Space Salon & Bodega in Riverland Terrace. FEARLESS: AMY GESELL By Lisa Moody Breslin FAST FACTS Name: Amy Gesell. Age: 48. Family members: Tommy (husband). Pets: Zephyr (German shorthair), Faust (mountain feist), a barn full of cats and horses and a kennel full of French spaniels. Diagnosis: IDC Grade 1, Stage 2, ER+ PR+ HER2-. When: January 2021. Length of treatments: Mastectomy, four months of chemo, 35 days of radiation, two reconstruction surgeries, full hysterectomy. How long in remission: This September will be one year.
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