Fight on
Sometimes people share stories with me that I feel I must share with you.
This was sent to me by S. White about her mother's best friend. She said I could share it with you. While I found it sad, it also made me aware of how important it is to continue to tell people early detection saves lives but only if you follow through with a course of recommended treatment.
Read on:
"I'm inspired with hope when I read your blog. Like so many families, mine has been affected by (breast cancer). My second mother, Akua Manley, passed away three years ago at age 50 of breast cancer and my mother and I honor her during this month.
As a religious woman, she didn't believe in medicinal treatments and unfortunately, her family and ours had to watch in pure sadness and while the disease took its course. When I read survival stories such as yours, it provides a sense of comfort because I know that not everyone affected loses their life, at least not without a fight.
We were so frustrated with her because she refused chemotherapy and told my mother, her best friend of 30 years, that this was God's plan and nothing could stop it. The last time I saw her, she was eerily thin, gaunt, and could barely speak above a faint whisper. All I could do was tell her how I loved her and a few weeks later, my mother was at her side as she slipped away in a hospice.
So now, we collect Breast Cancer awareness items in her honor. My mother's latest? A pink ribbon car freshener. She gives many awareness items to all eight of us and tells my brothers to give them her daughters-in-law. I see pink everywhere now, and I'm always reminded of October's arrival when Philadelphia's skyline lights and LOVE Park's fountain turn pink. "
Let's encourage every woman to fight. Doctors have the gift of healing and we have to make the choice to accept that gift
