<p>Nearly 20 years after her diagnosis and treatment, her fight with cancer seems so distant.</p>
<p>Linda Cook has battled cancer in both breasts, had a double mastectomy, went through chemotherapy and radiation, all while raising teenage children and being a music teacher at North Grove Elementary School.</p>
<p>The White River Township resident bawled when her mother shaved her hair after chemotherapy made chunks of it fall out in the shower. She remembers being eager to beat the disease and have life return to normal.</p>
<p>But now, after dealing with the murder of her adult daughter and subsequent trial and conviction of the man who took her daughter’s life, she realizes cancer is just a snippet of her story. “I look back, and at the time, it was devastating. Now looking back, it is not so devastating,” she said.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]
<p>In 1997, doctors found a lump in one of her breasts during a mammogram. The lump was invasive carcinoma, but at that time was contained to one of her breasts.</p>
<p>She had her first mammogram around the time she hit 40, which is the recommended age for women to begin the annual screening for the disease. Cook had always prided herself on following all doctor’s recommendations to keep herself healthy.</p>
<p>“No matter what the doctors said, I would check it off,” she said.</p>
<p>Diagnosis and cancer battle</p>
<p>No one in her family had ever battled breast cancer, and the surprise of being diagnosed startled her.</p>
<p>“It was like someone took a board and hit me in the face,” Cook said.</p>
<p>Doctors performed a lumpectomy and found that the tissue surrounding the lump also had cancer cells. Cook had to think about how she would tackle this disease.</p>
<p>“Decisions needed to be made as to what I wanted to do,” she said.</p>
<p>She opted for six weeks of radiation with some chemotherapy. She was deemed cancer-free shortly after she finished the treatments. The only real side effect she had was tiredness, but she still continued to teach. She also noticed that her hair’s texture became akin to dead grass.</p>
<p>“When you go through radiation, you are just so pulled down,” she said.</p>
<p>Doctors joked that her relative lack of serious side effects, such as burned skin, was something they wanted to find a way to replicate for other patients, she said.</p>
<p>“I was fortunate,” Cook said.</p>
<p>Two years later, the cancer battle took another turn. Doctors found a lump in her other breast during an exam. The lump was cancerous, and doctors told her it was unrelated to the previous bout of cancer.</p>
<p>This time, she decided to be aggressive and opted for chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and surgical reconstruction to lessen the odds that she would have to deal with breast cancer ever again. As a result, this bout was harder than the first, she said.</p>
<p>After surgeons removed her breasts, they took tissue and fat from her stomach for the reconstruction. For weeks after the surgery, she could not bend at the waist and relied on her teenage children and husband to help her through. She went through multiple rounds of chemotherapy before she had her double mastectomy and reconstruction. She also tested negative for the BRCA genes.</p>
<p>“(The cancer) just happened,” she said. “A freak of nature, I guess.”</p>
<p><strong>Saying goodbye</strong></p>
<p>She was deemed cancer-free, but her daughter’s murder three years after her last diagnosis made her feel like cancer was nothing compared to her daughter dying, she said. Her daughter, Leslie Dickerson, was 25, married and in college when she was stabbed dozens of times after her shift at a Boston Market in Indianapolis ended in April 2003.</p>
<p>News reports on her murder detail that Dickerson was reported missing by her husband but was found dead later in the restaurant’s dumpster. A man confessed to her murder, saying he was angry that she had spurned his sexual advances, so he stabbed her.</p>
<p>The following months of the trial and sentencing were the worst of Cook’s life, she said. “I would go through cancer 10 fold then go through losing her,” Cook said. “What you think is important in life is not important.”</p>
<p>Her unwavering faith is what led her through both cancer and losing her daughter, she said. She believes God was calling her to Leslie the morning before her murder. Cook was dropping off items at Leslie’s home and wanted to leave without waking her, believing she was tired and sleeping after a long night of studying.</p>
<p>Her husband insisted Cook go and say hello. For reasons she cannot explain, she did not want to leave Leslie that day. That evening, she was murdered. “There was something that kept drawing me toward her,” she said.</p>
<p>Without her faith, Cook does not know how she could have survived the experiences. “Bad things happen to people; we are not exempt to it,” she said. “It was just evil that existed at the time.”</p>
<p><strong>Moving on</strong></p>
<p>Sixteens years after Leslie’s murder, she is still a part of the household. Cook can still picture her face. Leslie’s husband has not remarried and gathers with the Cook family for special occasions. He will always be a part of the family, she said.</p>
<p>She has since retired from teaching full time but is an adviser and substitute teacher for band classes at Greenwood Community High School and Greenwood Community Middle School. Cook also plays in community bands around Greenwood and at Franklin College and enjoys spending time with her five grandchildren.</p>
<p>One thing she will always remember and appreciate from her battle with cancer is how her doctors always made it clear that the cancer would not kill her, she said.</p>
<p>Now, the cancer is a distant memory, and she feels almost silly for crying when she lost her hair. Life is bigger than lost hair and surgeries, she said.</p>[sc:pullout-title pullout-title="THE COOK FILE" ][sc:pullout-text-begin]<p>Name: Linda Cook</p>
<p>Age: 72</p>
<p>Diagnosis: Breast cancer, twice.</p>
<p>Treatment: Radiation, chemotherapy, double mastectomy and reconstruction</p>
<p>What has cancer taught you?</p>
<p>Make decisions and go through what you need to go through.</p>
<p>How has cancer changed you?</p>
<p>I looked back to see that life isn’t always easy. We live in a fallen world, but cancer made me stronger in my faith.</p>
<p>What would you say to someone just diagnosed with cancer:</p>
<p>Doctors made it clear that she was not going to die from her cancer and believes others can benefit from hearing the same.</p>
<p>"You are not going to die from this, it’s curable."</p>[sc:pullout-text-end]
