Our "A Calendar to Live By" features 11 survivors we serve through Here for the Girls programs and their inspiring, uplifting stories about their cancer journey. Get to know this month's model, Laura! (If our calendar isn't hanging on your wall right now, click here to get one.
Laura, Ms. February
37, Diagnosed at 34
3rd degree family history – known genetic mutation
In September 2014, Laura awoke one day with an odd feeling. A small voice in her head told her to do a breast self-exam. She raised her right arm and, indeed, felt a small bump. That same inexplicable voice—call it intuition—prompted her to call her doctor. Just one day before her 34th birthday, this loving wife, mother of two and government project assistant found herself in a patient room waiting for her OB/GYN to examine her breasts. Assured it was probably nothing serious, Laura was referred for a mammogram. One week later, she was diagnosed with stage I breast cancer. Laura tested positive for the BRCA1 breast cancer gene and learned after her father was tested that he carried the gene also. By the next month, she’d had a bilateral mastectomy followed by chemotherapy and a total hysterectomy. Laura credits her faith, family and friends—and all of her “sisters” at Beyond Boobs!—for helping her through. “I was shocked when I went to my first support group meeting and felt all that love, and then I was blown away when they showed up at the hospital—after just one meeting! The Boobers! were there for me and have been ever since.”