OLIVE BRANCH, Miss — The Olive Branch community rallied around a mom, wife and a former ABC24 reporter who is using her recent breast cancer diagnosis to urge women and men to constant checkups and not have them lapse.
Tuesday night, Tish Clark Dunning threw out the first pitch at Center Hill High School's baseball game to her son Joey, a junior on the team.
Team members and supporters wore pink to the game to support her.
"Tish is something else," said Cory Uselton, Desoto County Schools superintendent. "She's somebody that you can always count on. She's always there fighting for you. That's the reason we're all fighting for her too."
supporters cheered Dunning on as she threw the pitch, ahead of cancer surgery Thursday.
"It's been a quick journey, a fast journey and a heartbreaking journey for me," Dunning said.
On February 1, Dunning felt a lump.
Two days later, a biopsy confirmed her worst fears: breast cancer.
"I was absolutely frozen in fear when I found out," Dunning added. "I couldn't talk, I couldn't call anybody."
Dunning said doctors discovered something else: a major lapse in time since her previous breast cancer screening.
"They said, 'Tish, did you realize you haven't had a mammogram since 2015?'" Dunning said. "Seven years ago."
Dunning will undergo a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgery on Thursday.
So, she's telling her story with the hope of helping others.
"I did not keep up with it like I should, everyone should get a checkup, even if it's just a simple checkup once a year, at least," Dunning said.
And in these trying times, the Olive Branch community has Dunning's back.
"We thought we needed to do something special for Tish, Tish is just a great person all around," Center Hill High School Baseball Coach Peyton Callahan said.
The Center Hill High School baseball family asked her to throw out the first pitch Tuesday night.
Her son Joey, a junior on the team, will catch that pitch and honor his mom.
"When I found out that this was going to be happening, I thought, Joey is going to kill me, he's going to kill me, he's going to hate this and he was really cool about this," Dunning said.
"It's just a game, it's just a baseball game, there's a lot more important things out there in the world, in life, Tish throwing out first pitch kind of highlights that," Coach Callahan added.
Dunning said that support has inspired and humbled her and she fought back tears while she made a plea to others.
"My message is please get checked out, please get checked out because I have been scared to death," Dunning said.
She said she'll know of a more specific treatment plan in the coming weeks after she's scheduled to undergo other procedures.