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Tag Archives: Cancer


‘You are a statistic of one’

Sherry Pollex was healthy — or so she thought. She exercised and ate well. She was young and active. Her only bouts of illness were the occasional cold or sore throat.

A Path to Resiliency

Thompson had a mammogram the previous December. She’d kept up with regular, at-home breast exams. She had lost two aunts to breast cancer. A mother of three, she knew she had to be proactive, so she was.

‘It always happened to someone else’

The first time Tammy Coulter was diagnosed with cancer, she had no signs or symptoms. A routine mammogram had turned up stage 0 ductal carcinoma — a cancer she couldn’t see or touch.

In her words

When I found a lump in my breast, I was 38 years old. I was healthy and ran between 75 and 100 miles a week.

Breaking down barriers

Stacy Sawyers’ work puts her face to face with patients at one of the most challenging times of their lives. They’ve just been diagnosed with cancer, and yet, for various complex reasons, they are unable to get the care they need to wage a battle against the disease.

‘This is stage 3 rectal cancer, and I can do this’

“I only ever went to the doctor when absolutely necessary — for vaccinations or when I was pregnant,” Judy recalls. “I was always one who felt that my health was my responsibility. I ate well. I exercised and, usually, I never got anything more than a cold.”

‘I had no choice but to beat this.’

Dr. Patricia Flowers was religious about her mammograms. She had been since she turned 32. Then, in the summer of 2014, she found a lump in her breast. Her annual mammogram was just a few weeks away, but she decided to move it up.