But Antoinette, 61, of Fairhaven is not someone who gives up in the face of trouble. Always optimistic, she said she made up her mind that cancer was not going to be the end of her. And six years later, she is cancer-free and looking forward to more time with her husband, her three children and three grandchildren.

She credits the “amazing, wonderful people” at the Southcoast Health Cancer Care Center in Fairhaven — along with her own determination.

“I wasn’t going to let cancer consume my whole life. I wanted to live,” she said.

Antoinette smoked for almost 40 years and had begun to cough persistently. Her son Steven urged her to have it checked out, and her primary care doctor, a now-retired Southcoast physician, sent her for chest X-rays that revealed lesions in her lungs.

Dr. Michael Barretti, Medical Director of Pulmonary & Critical Care, reviewed her case and diagnosed her with Stage 4 non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer. He referred her to the Southcoast Cancer Care Center in Fairhaven. She decided to get a second opinion and met with doctors at Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center in Foxborough, who told her that the treatment plan Southcoast Health had outlined was the same as what they would recommend. She decided to have treatment at the Cancer Care Center, conveniently located in her hometown.

“I would have had to spend months traveling back and forth to Boston for treatment. I decided to stay with Southcoast in Fairhaven. It was a much better option for me and my family,” she said. “They got me in right away.”

She met with Dr. Edress Othman, Chief of Medical Oncology, who would be in charge of her care.

“I loved that he was very honest,” she said. “‘It’s not good,’ he told me. He gave me nine months. I said I was going to prove him wrong.”

Dr. Othman started Antoinette on chemotherapy started right away, and every three weeks for more than four years she went to the cancer center for an injection of several chemotherapy drugs, including pemetrexed, and the immunotherapy pembrolizumab.

Over time, her routine scans showed the lesions were shrinking, and Dr. Othman reduced her chemo treatments to once a month. More than a year later, she is cancer-free.

“I did excellent with it. I wasn’t sick, I wasn’t dizzy and I had an appetite,” she said, and she was able to continue working at her housekeeping job in South Dartmouth.

Today when she meets with Dr. Othman, her nurses and the other Southcoast professionals who care for her, she feels she is visiting friends. She knows all their names and details about their lives.

“At first, (Dr. Othman) seemed very reserved. Now that man hugs me, he laughs and smiles,” she said. “They make you feel like family.”

Today, Antoinette is busy living her life and enjoying time with her husband Steven and her family and friends.

“I told my family if we let this consume us, it’s going to win,” she said. “Family was there for me, friends were there for me, there were cards in the mail every day, and I had a good attitude. I said, ‘I’m not dying. It’s not happening.’”

She and her husband are planning a trip to Colorado to visit their daughter, something she wouldn’t have done prior to her diagnosis because she was afraid of flying. Now, she said, as a result of what she has been through, “I’m not afraid to get on a plane.”

Her advice?

“Don’t take anything for granted,” she said. “You want to do something, do it. Don’t wait.”

 And she can’t say enough about the care she has received at the Southcoast Health Cancer Center in Fairhaven.

“That place is awesome. I tell everyone how great they are,” she said. “From top to bottom, it’s the best place you could go to. These doctors are amazing. You feel it that they are really there for you.”

To learn more about Southcoast Health’s Oncology Services visit https://www.southcoast.org/cancer-centers/.