Jean Hunsinger has no history of cancer in her family.

Her mother, she said, lived to be 92. Her father reached the age of 89.

“There was no cancer,” Hunsinger, 79, of Hometown, said. “Neither one of them had it.”

But in 2001, Hunsinger knew cancer was in her body.

“I found it. I felt the lump,” Hunsinger said.

She scheduled an appointment with her doctor, and tests confirmed that she had breast cancer.

Despite hearing the news, she wasn’t surprised.

“When I felt the lump, that’s when I had the shock,” she said.

Hunsinger had a mastectomy and chemotherapy, and the breast cancer never returned.

In 2020, however, Hunsinger learned she had a different type of cancer.

This time, it was cancer of the urethra and it led to her having a kidney removed.

“It happened during COVID,” she recalled. “I don’t think anyone knew what to do when COVID came out so I had no treatments or anything for it. But supposedly all the margins and everything were good.”

Two years later, it returned.

“It came back in ’22. I had chemo, and after the chemo, there was a nodule in my lung and they removed it,” Hunsinger said. “I’ve had my share.”

After cancers of the breast and urethra, Hunsinger was diagnosed with yet another type of cancer in the fall.

“The doctor that removed my kidney the urologist — had me come back every year for a checkup and a scan,” she said. “He saw something on the scan that he didn’t like.”

It turned out to be colon cancer.

“It’s like every two years,” she said of the cancer occurrences.

Hunsinger was scheduled for six chemotherapy treatments. After her fourth, she became severely ill.

“I was deathly sick. I don’t even remember them taking me to the hospital. I guess I got kind of poisoned by the chemo,” she said.

Hunsinger had developed sepsis.

She was treated and released to a rehabilitation center, then returned home for Christmas.

Her stay at home didn’t last long.

“I actually ended up in the hospital again on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day,” Hunsinger noted. “That was because I was filling up with fluid. But that wasn’t too bad. They got it under control.”

And in March, she returned again to the hospital. This time it was for C-diff, an infection of the colon.

“I don’t remember even being there again,” she said. “It was all related to the first time I was in the hospital.”

In between hospital stays, she said, she felt good.

“I was able to go out. I went out for dinner. I went out for lunch and those kinds of things,” she said.

Hunsinger said she tries to stay upbeat.

“All my friends tell me I am very positive about it,” she said. “One of my friends said they never heard me complain.”

She’s grateful for her friends and her family.

“I have a very good support system between my family and my friends. I have visitors all the time that come and bring me stuff. I’ve had really, really good support,” Hunsinger said. “I think that’s what kept me going.”

She recommended that everyone shows get a colonoscopies and other tests suggested by their medical professionals.

Jean Hunsinger is one of four people being recognized with Courage Awards on the American Cancer Society Telethon broadcast live from Penn’s Peak from noon to midnight Saturday and Sunday. Other honorees are Peg Alberici, Darin Dotter and Holly Koscak. To donate in their honor or other cancer patients, call 800-883-2109 or online: www.CancerTelethon.org/give.