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t m c » p u l s e | s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 9 23 F rieda Frazier typically bowls a 160 when she's out with her church group— women in one lane, men in another. "We just play to have a good time," Frazier said. She has four children, 15 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. She and her husband, Curtis, live with their oldest daughter and her family in a house they built together 17 years ago. At home and at play, Frazier is an active member of an extended community. But in 2012, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her role in both worlds was threatened. "I went to the doctor that April—I knew the lump was there," Frazier, now 70, said. "I did chemo through October, surgery in November, then radiation from January to the end of February." Surgeons removed 19 lymph nodes around Frazier's right breast during the lumpectomy, although only one was cancerous. Her oncologist at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center assured her they had caught the cancer in time. And they had. But it was a long haul from diag- nosis to recovery. Frazier, a senior account manager at a Houston insurance services company, didn't work for nine months. "Chemo didn't like me," she said. And then, in 2016, Frazier faced an entirely different health crisis: she found herself increasingly short of breath. After a trip to New York City, during which she struggled to walk around Central Park, Frazier's primary doctor referred her to a cardiologist. After reading Frazier's electrocardiogram, the cardiologist, who works with Texas Heart Institute and Baylor St. Luke's, had some choice words. "He came into the office and said 'We have two votes, yours and mine, and mine counts most,'" Frazier recalled. "He said 'I want to put you in a wheelchair and roll you to St. Luke's … and we're going to put you through the emergency room because you really look like you're a heart attack waiting to happen.'" Around 10 p.m. the same night, Frazier learned she would be undergoing heart surgery the next morning. "Having a double bypass was a cinch compared to having cancer," she said. "I never was scared and it didn't really hurt as bad as I thought it would. They glue you back together." She was released from the hospital after six days. Today, Frazier works 40 hours a week and has advice for anyone who'll listen: "You have to go to the doctor. We live in a medical center town that has some of the best doctors in the world. It would be a shame to lose your life because you won't go see them." She often thinks of something her 88-year-old mother told her, something that has become a mantra for both her and her mom. "After my dad died," Frazier recalled, "my mother said, 'I'm not going to sit in this chair and wither away and not live my life. I'm going to keep on moving.'" — Maggie Galehouse Frieda Frazier, 70