Photo: Courtesy Alexis Slifer Butcher
The pandemic hitAlexis Slifer Butcherhard.
A Nashville-based singer/songwriter, she found herself living the life of many, as she and her husband of four years, Carson, spent the majority of 2020 cutting corners to save money. But on a special night in October, the two decided to splurge.
“I remember coming home from work and my husband had bought me this pink dress, and it was laying out on the bed,” Slifer Butcher, 28, recalls in a recent interview with PEOPLE. “He told me that he had made a reservation for dinner for my birthday. We went to The Standard in downtown Nashville, and it was just the most perfect night.”
Indeed, on top of the emotional rollercoaster she finds herself personally living, she also finds herself on quite the professional journey: The Grammy and Dove Award–nominated song “Famous For (I Believe)” that she co-wrote alongside Roland Charles Butler, Douglas Jordan Sapp and Christian artist Tauren Wells recently wasnamed the ASCAP Christian song of the year.
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And now it is. But it’s also become a song that has served as an encouragement to Slifer Butcher herself as she continues with a slew of cancer treatments.
“When you’re pregnant, your body is just always changing, so we didn’t specifically realize that the lump was an issue or something problematic until my second trimester,” she remembers. “I called my OB/GYN and she had me immediately rush over because it had grown. I mean, it was the size of an egg, and it was hard and painful.”
They soon knew this wasnotpregnancy related.
“We had a biopsy done and within three days, we knew that it was breast cancer,” Slifer Butcher says. “I remember that it was all very bizarre, because before the doctor even called with the results, I already felt like I knew. I believe that the Lord really prepared me for that news, because I just sat on the side of the bed and just took in the moment and just how my life had just changed.”
“In that moment, we had no answers when it came to the breast cancer,” she says. “All we knew was, yes, it was breast cancer. It was a really painful but beautiful night.”
Courtesy Alexis Slifer Butcher
And while songwriting had long served as a therapy of sorts for Slifer Butcher, the diagnosis of cancer left her depleted of ways in which to write. She explains, “My heart was so broken. I didn’t have the capacity to write at all. I would sit and just play music, but I couldn’t find the words. I was just felt empty.”
Currently, Slifer Butcher finds herself just a couple of weeks from her final chemo treatment. The tumor that she once could feel is “not there anymore,” and there is no sign that the cancer has spread. But as any cancer patient knows, it hasn’t been easy.
source: people.com
