JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

After cancer cells returned in 2007, Joyce Thompson began taking an oral chemo treatment daily and a monthly injection. Though her bloodwork today is normal, she said she'll always have to fight.

Joyce Thompson sat down to dinner with her husband and daughter and decided she would just tell them.

"Guess what," she said. "I've got news."

Her family could be forgiven if they expected the news to be bad. Nine years ago, she gave them the news that she had discovered a lump in her breast during a self-examination, which was soon followed by the news that the lump was cancerous. Then, after eight cancer-free years, she gave her family the news that the cancer had returned to the bones in her right leg and arm.

What news did she have now?

"Kellogg's called today," she said. "Tony the Tiger is retiring, and they want me to be on a cereal box."

The kicker was that she was telling the truth. Well, sort of. Kellogg's did ask to put her face on a box. Tony's job is still safe, however.

Thompson, 63, who lives in Bonsack and has worked for the Kroger Mid-Atlantic regional office in Roanoke for 33 years, is one of 38 women whose faces and cancer survival stories are featured on boxes of Kellogg's products. The campaign is part of a partnership between Kroger and some of its main suppliers -- including Kellogg's -- to highlight National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

All of the featured stories are from Kroger employees who are breast cancer survivors. The boxes are available in Roanoke Valley Kroger stores and will soon hit the shelves in a six-state region.

Thompson's story and a portrait of her wearing a pink top and a string of pearls appear on the back of a pink-tinged box of Special K protein bars.

"Hey, it's better than being on a milk carton," she joked.

Staying positive

Thompson believes her cancer might have been part of some divine plan.

"God had a reason," she said. "Cancer is not a word anyone wants to hear, but you can't hide from it. It's been a challenge for me, but with the support of family and friends ... and following my doctor's instructions, I only worry about the things I can control. Everything else I leave in God's hands."

Perhaps the Kellogg's campaign is part of the "reason" of which she speaks. The box featuring Thompson's story stresses the need for mammograms and self-examinations. In fact, Thompson discovered the lump just a few months after receiving a normal mammogram.

"If just one person gets helped by that," she said, "that's worth everything. To me, awareness is the big factor ... it's key. That and being positive."

Thompson exudes megawatts of positive energy. She has fought cancer with the combined forces of modern medicine, faith, determination and humor -- all of which have sustained her through a series of personal travails and tragedies.

Her husband of 47 years, Curtis, has endured his own health problems for several years, but is doing better lately. Her brother died in a motorcycle wreck near the time of her second cancer diagnosis. She recently lost a close friend to cancer.

Any one of those events would stagger any person, no matter how strong-willed and positive. Yet, Thompson has borne her own suffering, as well as the suffering of others, with a clear-eyed, forward-looking attitude.

"I am who I am," she said. "I do what I need to do, then move on. I've always been a person with a positive attitude. I see the glass as half-full. I have a very deep faith. God is a big part of my life."

The bulletin boards around her desk are adorned with plaques embossed with sunny aphorisms, such as "Count your smiles instead of tears; Count your courage instead of fears." She also has a ceramic pink ribbon -- the ubiquitous symbol for breast cancer awareness -- from a cancer walk in Norfolk, as well as a congratulatory letter from Kroger's chairman of the board, David Dillon.

"We're proud of Joyce," said Anne Jenkins, Kroger's community relations manager for the mid-Atlantic. Jenkins assisted Thompson with getting her story selected for the Special K promotion.

"She's done so much to raise awareness in the community and within the Kroger family."

Jenkins said that Kroger has committed $3 million in donations for breast cancer initiatives across the country.

Thompson's grace and dignity during her battle has inspired her co-workers.

"If it ever strikes me, I hope I handle it the way she does," said Ginny Bowers, who has worked alongside Thompson for seven years.

"Joyce is a strong woman. I tend to seek out strong women as friends. I lost my mother and my mother-in-law to breast cancer, so I have memories of what they went through. Watching Joyce deal with it has been very inspirational. Her outlook has been great through the whole thing."

And her humor was contagious.

"She wasn't vain," Bowers said. "She liked to surprise us sometimes by taking her hair off."

In fact, Thompson's chemo-caused hair loss is a favorite part of her story.

"The nurse gave me a date -- it was a Saturday," Thompson recalled, "and she said, 'Tell the family this is your day. Tell your husband to leave the house, send the kids to the grandparents. Tell them you want to be by yourself.' I asked her, 'What for?' And she said, 'That's the day your hair will start falling out.' I laughed and said, 'Oh, you know the exact date that my hair will fall out?' How could she know something like that?"

Because the nurse knew her chemo treatments, that's how. Sure enough, just as the nurse predicted, Thompson began losing her hair that Saturday. Thompson called her hairdresser for an immediate appointment.

"Go ahead and shave my head," she told the hairdresser. "I'm not putting up with this."

She wore a wig, except for the "times I'd go through hot flashes, then that thing came off."

'A battle for life'

In 2005, Thompson reached an important benchmark: She had been cancer-free for more than five years. Still, she kept going to the doctor for follow-up examinations.

She's glad she did. In 2007, her tumor markers -- substances in the blood that indicate a cancerous tumor -- had gone from an average of 15 per test to 147.

Her oncologist told her, "I think we've got a problem," Thompson remembered.

Cancer cells had returned to her right side. For the past year, she has taken an oral chemo treatment daily and a monthly injection to fight the cells. She says that her bloodwork today is normal, but that she has a fight on her hands every day for the rest of her life.

"Some people get to the five-year mark and think they're cured and can go on their merry way," she said. "But it's a battle for life. It's going to follow you."

The whole while, she will share her story with others, and will encourage women to get mammograms and monitor their own health. She's thankful that her story is on a box, where thousands of people can read it.

"I have the opportunity to have breakfast with many people," she said.