Local nurse who survived aggressive cancer works aims to give voice to others with similar battle

Credit: Mary Beth Photography

Credit: Mary Beth Photography

“I ended up meeting my husband Tom when he was home from college and I was still in high school,” Thompson said.

The pair married when Thompson was 17 years old. Thompson’s husband joined the Air Force, and she moved with him to New Mexico where they lived for four years. They had two children – son Brooks and daughter Madeson – while there.

After four years, the young family returned home to Dayton.

“Tom finished his degree in criminal justice and went through the police academy,” Thompson said. “He was hired to work for the City of Miamisburg.”

Meanwhile, Thompson was focused on her children and working odd jobs, so college was not on her immediate radar, though she dreamed of becoming a nurse. At the age of 25, she took a few classes at Sinclair Community College to start her on her way. Then life happened.

“When I was 26, we took full legal custody of a young man from Africa named Romain Sato,” Thompson said.

Thompson’s husband, a graduate of Dayton Christian, was involved with the school’s basketball team when he met Romain, who ended up being an extremely gifted player, but didn’t have a permanent home.

“Romain’s mother signed over her parental rights, and we became his legal parents,” Thompson said.

Thompson shifted her focus to her newly adopted son, who didn’t know English and needed help in school. She became his tutor, helping Romain graduated high school on time.

“It was one of the most challenging times of my life but also one of the most rewarding,” Thompson said.

Consequently, Thompson didn’t return to college herself. Then when Romain went off to college, Thompson accepted an entry level position at LexisNexis and worked her way into a sales analytics position. She continued to support Romain with his studies in college.

“I honestly didn’t think college would be a reality for me,” Thompson said.

In 2006, the family moved to Oakwood. Romain had graduated college and married then moved to Europe to play basketball. Her other two children were doing well. But Thompson didn’t feel satisfied with her job.

“For two years I felt unsettled in my spirit and wasn’t doing what I was created to do,” Thompson said. “Tom and I decided that I would leave my job and go to nursing school at the age of 36.”

In 2011, Thompson graduated with her associate’s degree in nursing and immediately got a job at Kettering Medical Center caring for cancer patients, having always had a heart for people at end of life.

“When I was a little girl, my mom and I would go with my dad to nursing homes,” Thompson said. “I felt so much joy watching the residents sing and clap along with the music.”

Thompson continued to move up in her career and became a clinical nurse manager. She finished her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 2017, she began working on her doctorate degree.

“I wanted to prepare myself in the best way possible for any opportunity God had for me,” Thompson said.

Thompson became the director of nursing at Soin Medical Center in Beavercreek in 2018. But by the end of 2019, she was shocked with her own diagnosis of cancer.

“I was very busy, and my kids all got married and I just forgot to get my mammogram,” Thompson said. “It had been almost two years since my previous one.”

Thompson was diagnosed in September of 2019 with Stage 1B cancer. It was triple positive, making it aggressive, so within two years, she had six surgeries and a hundred or more medical appointments, chemotherapy, radiation and targeted endocrine therapy. She made the choice to undergo a double mastectomy.

“I was able to choose all my doctors because I knew them,” Thompson said. “But this blessing weighed heavy on me because I watched people come into chemo alone and scared. I thought that all of us in the medical community needed to do more than we are doing.”

After surveying female cancer survivors and asking about their experiences, she was shocked at their answers.

“It shines a light on the gaps in care out there,” Thompson said. “That’s what inspired my book.”

With very little writing experience, Thompson wasn’t sure how to start. But in March of 2025, she felt led to write and had 280 pages before she realized it.

“The book is basically a memoir of my own experience with cancer,” Thompson said. “It’s an honest and vulnerable telling of the realities I went through.”

Included in Thompson’s book are also the insights of the 374 survivors who shared their stories with her. Her focus is to help patients understand how important it is to advocate for themselves. “Held: Faith, Medicine and a Life Rewritten by Cancer,” was published on Sept. 5 of this year and Thompson said writing it has been incredibly healing for her.

She calls it a “call to action” for the healthcare system.

“So many women have reached out and said I have given them voices,” Thompson said. “This has been validating. I don’t want to be famous. I just want to help people.”