For many women diagnosed with breast cancer, the news often comes as a heavy blow that rocks their resiliency and challenges their faith.

Not so for Federal Way resident Marlene Rusch.

Rusch, 77, was diagnosed last November with what her doctors described as a triple negative cancer, an extremely aggressive type of cancer that doctors told her needed to be treated quickly.

Doctors discovered a small lump in her breast during a routine mammogram last October.

That November, Rusch’s doctor called her asking to schedule an appointment to discuss the results. Rusch at that moment was planning a trip with her husband to travel to Montana to be with family for Thanksgiving and told the doctor he could her tell right then and there over the phone.

“My first response was, ‘What are we going to do about it?’ I didn’t have any sad or horrified reactions,” Rusch said. “We went to western Montana for Thanksgiving. That first night I spent talking to God about it. Whatever he had planned for me, I was perfectly fine to accept that.”

Rusch has four daughters, two stepdaughters, eight grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

“I have had a wonderful life. I wasn’t terribly frustrated by it.”

Rusch said her doctor set her up with an oncologist and radiologist at St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way. A surgery in February removed the small tumor.

Following surgery, she did three rounds of chemo and in June started six weeks of radiation, five days a week, for a total of 32 treatments. Radiation ended in early August.

Rusch said the only side effects she has had are a lack of energy and hearing loss. Never during the chemo and radiation did she have any sickness. She said she avoided taking the medications recommended to her. Today, she is cancer-free but will be monitored by her doctors for five years.

“I’ve had really good care,” Rusch said. “I have had a massive amount of people praying for me.”

Among those praying for her is her Christian women’s group that meets twice a month at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Federal Way. Rusch said her strong faith has been “the sustaining power that has kept me from being sick.”

Making sure to get her mammogram also saved her life.

“I advise my granddaughters to have mammograms as early as they possibly can,” Rusch said. “It certainly is not a traumatic thing to have a mammogram.”

Rusch will turn 78 on Oct. 13. Although her hearing may never return, doctors promise Rusch that her energy should come back.

Energy or no energy, Rusch is staying busy doing what she loves: backyard flower gardening and interior design.