Reitz Journalism

“It started with a simple promise made between to sisters. It ends when that promise is fulfilled.”
The latest race was September 16, 2007 at the Eastland, Mall. People in our committee participated in Race for the Cure, because of a simple promise one sister made to her sister, to help prevent cancer. It helps find a new cure for breast cancer. Every year around the same time frame, Eastland Mall holds the Race for the Cure and I hope you were lucky enough to be a part of this organization.

In 1982 that promise became the Race for the Cure and launched the global breast cancer movement. Fighting every minute of everyday to finally finish what was started and achieve a world without breast cancer, this fund is an awareness raising organization that is committed to finding the cure for breast cancer. Research, education, screening, and treatment are advancing as we speak by volunteer workers, local affiliates, and Race for the Cure events.
Growing up, Suzy Komen and her sister were as close as you can get, Suzy being the older prefect sister was beautiful and kind, not only to her sister but to everyone. She was the star of her hometown of Peoria, Illinois- the high school homecoming queen, and the college beauty queen. Her sister on the other hand, Nancy was a bigger girl, who developed her own way of getting attention, from her mischievous ways to her hours of galloping around on horseback, and her tomboy ways. Suzy tried hard to teach her ways of being classy, and elegant.
Suzy came home to Peoria when she graduated from college. She soon got a modeling job from a local company, when the time came, her sweetheart from college, Stan Komen, asked her to be his wife. Afterward Nancy went to college and finally found her place, she felt independent and responsible, ready to take on anything. After she graduated, she moved to Dallas, Texas, home of her father’s older sister.
Distance was no challenge for these two sisters’, they spoke everyday by the phone in the afternoon. One Tuesday afternoon, Suzy’s doctor found a lump in her breast that was not a cyst, a closed, bladder-like sac formed in tissues, containing fluid or semi fluid matter. A biopsy of the tumor was recommend, a biopsy is the surgical removal examine of tissue to see if cancer cells are present.
Nancy returned home to Peoria, in a hurry to reach her sister. When she got off the plane, her father was waiting there alone with an expression she would never forget. At age 33, Suzy G Komen, had breast cancer.
Growing up in a small town families usually stay with one doctor all their life, the same went for Suzy’s family. Mistake number one was treating her cancer the way he treated her with her measles. They never knew enough to inquire information from a cancer center. Their family doctor called in a surgeon to review Suzy’s case. The surgeon-suggested a subcutaneous mastectomy, “a procedure in which the outside of the breast is left intact, but an incision is made and the breast tissue is removed.” Five months later after Suzy surgery, she felt good, convinced she was cured. Six months had gone by, and her worst nightmare had returned, she found a lump, under her arm, despite her surgery the cancer had spread.
Mayo Clinic is where Suzy went next there they learned her cancer had spread to her lung and under arm. The tumor as now a size of a quarter in the upper part of her right lung, and shadows elsewhere. Their recommendation was thirty days of radiation to watch what would happen to the tumor.
Suzy’s family felt anger; they asked why was this happing to someone who had never done anything wrong to be sick. Suzy was fighting for her own life, trying to keep up a brave attitude and talk of plans of her future,
In Betty Ford, Suzy found new strength. In 1978, while Mrs. Ford was the First Lady, she had finished a successful fight with her breast cancer. Her bravery found a place in Suzy’s heart, that we could never understand, unless you or your loved one has experienced it. After Betty Ford told the world of her cancer, Suzy felt it was time to tell everyone she intended to fight as well.
The cancer was out of control, there wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it, but no one was going to stop now. She sought treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. When she arrived she was already an IV cancer patient, which means her cancer had spread to other organs in her body and was growing. It was a very scary moment in her life, trying to save herself.
Even after Suzy’s ordeal, Nancy found out she had breast cancer as well. She had three different biopsies over the time frame. You have three times the usual risk of developing the disease if your mother or sisters have the cancer. * For fifteen months, the Houston doctors were successful in slowing down the cancer in Suzy body, but the disease raged inside her body once again.
Her condition began to go downhill. She had more surgery and more chemotherapy, to try and prevent the disease but her body had built up a resistance to the drugs. She broke out in sores, all over her body. Her bravery had taken a fall; she was feeling awful while her family was feeling hopeless.
Once Suzy realized her goodbyes were coming sooner than she hoped, she started to think about helping the sick women in her hospital. Even though she was barely talking, she was worrying about other people. After nine operations, three courses of chemotherapy and radtion, she had lost a three-year battle with her body.
Nancy who felt absence without her sister in her life, decided to make her sister’s wish come true, she was going to help other women with breast cancer. Nancy Brinker established race for the cure in 1982. The foundation is a national organization where they dedicate their research solely to breast cancer. In addition to funding research, the foundation funds innovative breast cancer education, screening and treatment projects for the medically underinsured.”