The following story appeared in The Natchez Democrat’s pink special section Sunday to raise awareness for breast cancer.

NATCHEZ — Joyce Hargrave could have lived her life as just another statistic.

Teenager mother.

Junior high school dropout.

Becoming a mother at 13 and dropping out of school in the 7th grade didn’t exactly give her the best chances to beat the odds.

But Hargrave got her GED, and at 35, enrolled in Alcorn State University’s nursing program.

So when another statistic became a reality, and Hargrave became one of the one in eight women who will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, Hargrave persevered.

Hargrave was in her first semester at Alcorn in 2011 when one of her classes covered a chapter on breast self-examinations.

“A voice in the back of my head when I was driving home just told me to go home and check myself,” said Hargrave, now 39.

After finding a lump in her left breast, Hargrave went to her teachers, Dr. Meg Brown and Gayle Hathcock, who took her to nurse practitioner Robin Christian at Alcorn. The staff at Alcorn helped Hargrave get set up with area doctors.

Hargrave had a mammogram and then an ultrasound.

“At that point, it wasn’t looking like anything,” she said. “I was thinking I was in the clear.”

But the lump was removed, tested and came back cancerous.

“I just lost my breath when I found out,” Hargrave said.

Doctors removed Hargrave’s left breast on Dec. 28, 2011.

Classes started back Jan. 12.

“I remember all the instructors saying, ‘You can sit out, Joyce. We understand,’” Hargrave said. “But I just said, ‘I’ve worked so hard,’ and I didn’t want anything to detour me.”

So Hargrave went back to school and didn’t miss a day while battling breast cancer.

The lump came back seven times in her breast cavity, but in those instances the reoccurring lump was non-cancerous.

“I never had any real holiday breaks from school, because every break, I had a surgery,” Hargrave said.

Hargrave endured six rounds of chemotherapy in 2012, which didn’t making studying easy.

“My kids read my textbooks to me,” Hargrave said. “When I was too tired to read, they would read to me.”

Hargrave has four children, Derrick Sewell, 25, Cordesia Sewell, 21, Jimmesha Hargrave, 19, and Ji’Mya Hargrave, 15. She also has two grandchildren, Derrick’s daughter Dezirae Sewell and Ji’Mya’s son Jayden Hargrave.

“I don’t know what I would have done without them,” Hargrave said.

Jimmesha Hargrave said watching her mother’s battle with cancer was difficult, but inspiring.

“When she was going through cancer, it changed all of our lives,” Jimmesha said. “She taught us that excuses are really nothing. She finished school (despite) breast cancer. She got up every single day when she was battling cancer and went to school whether she felt like it or not.”

Hargrave’s classmates at Alcorn were also a big help.

“They helped me study and read to me,” she said. “I never would have made it without my classmates.”

Hargrave also attributes her recovery to her siblings, friends, family and her doctors, Dr. Geoffrey Flattmann, Dr. Jack Rodriguez and Dr. Bernadette Sherman.

Hargrave graduated from Alcorn with a bachelor’s degree in nursing in 2013 and was declared in remission that same year.

Hargrave’s voice cracks and her eyes tear up when she talks about persevering despite the odds that have been stacked against her most of her life.

“Perseverance, I think I’ve earned that word,” she said.

Hargrave now uses her experience to care for her own patients as a nurse at a local nursing home and Merit Health Natchez — Community Campus.

“I’ve seen nurses who are there for a check, and I’ve seen the ones with caring hearts,” she said. “And I wanted to be a nurse with a caring heart.”

Not every day of her journey has been filled with sunshine and optimism, but Hargrave said she found strength in knowing others believed in her.

“I had my kids watching me, and I had my classmates watching me, and I just wasn’t going to let them down,” she said. “And make no mistake, this was not me, this was God,” she said.