October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

From Health Central.com

U.S. Breast Cancer Facts
• Over 215,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year.
• One person is diagnosed with breast cancer every 3 minutes.
• One person dies of breast cancer every 14 minutes.
• People over the age of 50 account for 75% of breast cancer cases.


Unfortunately there is also that 25% of women that are under age 50. Samantha [name changed] married my oldest cousin back when I was in high school. She was superfit, superbeautiful, supertan, superblonde, and had super blue eyes. She was a former BYU cheerleader. She exercised all the time. She was very stylish. She was also one of the most genuinely nice women I have ever met. I was glad that she became part of the family because I didn’t fit in with my family, and I felt I related to her. She liked to talk about clothes, makeup, pop culture….stuff that I was interested in. She also took time to talk to me, and showed interest in me, even though I was almost 10 years younger.

She and her husband ended up living in the same town that I grew up in, so we would see them every once in a while. She even became a 3rd grade teacher at my former elementary school. She had two kids: a boy and a girl; both spitting images of their Dad. I remember that she was debating about having a third baby, after her daughter had reached toddler-hood.

In August of 2002 I heard the news that she was pregnant, and I was happy for her. She found the lump a short time later. 34 weeks pregnant, and there it was. They did the tests. We prayed and held our breath. Positive. Stage 4. She had the mastectomy. They gave her 6 weeks to recover. They induced the little baby girl. She was born, a spitting image of her mother, and then her mom was wheeled to her first chemotherapy treatment.
In May of 2003 I walked for her in the Revlon Run/Walk for women. I raised $2000.00. $1500 dollars more than my goal.

She fought. Family and friends helped in droves. One day the neighbors showed up at their doorstep with news that they were coming to finish their basement so that her sister (who was living with them to help out) could have a room of her own. She shaved her head. She exercised and tanned and mothered in between chemo treatments.
August 16, 2003…A little less than one year after the baby was born, Samantha went upstairs to take a nap, and never woke up. The family had a birthday party and a funeral all in the same week. As I was dealing with the grief of this event, I imagined the beginning of her story as a novel:
“Three days after my funeral, my daughter celebrated her first birthday. The pregnancy was her beginning and my end.”

The good news is that it isn’t really the end. She will live on, and she will be reunited with her family again one day. And that is the one and only bright side of breast cancer. Please get your mammogram today.