ANDERSON — When Carla Castor noticed a tenderness in her left breast and felt a dime-sized lump, she was shocked and frightened.

When he doctor confirmed that she had breast cancer, she found herself worrying about the financial burden of treatment for the cancer.

But with stage III cancer, she went through with both chemotherapy and radiation, deciding to worry about the cost later.

The survival rate for Castor’s stage IIIA cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute, is only 67 percent.

Her treatment began with surgery to remove the lump in her breast and seven of the lymph nodes in her arm pit.

Six of the lymph nodes were cancerous.

Immediately after surgery, Castor started chemotherapy treatments, and soon felt the effect of cancer treatment.

She had a bottle-cap sized port implanted in her chest due to deep veins, which would make the chemotherapy difficult.

She’d go in once a month on a Tuesday for six months, spending up to four hours hooked to a machine that pumped various cancer drugs into the port.

As she sat, waiting for the treatment to be over, Castor’s body was pumped with anywhere from four to six different drugs.

Within two weeks of her first chemotherapy treatment, Castor’s hair began to fall out.

“Mine came out when I was coming home from my daughter’s volleyball game,” Castor said, a single mother to her then 12-year-old daughter.

When she arrived home from the game, Castor decided to shave her head. “My sister shaved it for me.”

“It was devastating. That was probably the hardest part,” Castor said.

All the while, Castor was experiencing extreme tiredness and nausea, effects of the chemo drugs.