Breast cancer’s effect on family life

KAITLIN BARR EDITOR IN CHIEF KMB738@CABRINI EDU

“I stood in the kitchen doorway as she walked down the hallway, stopped, turned around and asked, ‘So it’s cancer?’ My stomach dropped as I watched her face go blank and her eyes widen; it was straight out of a movie,” senior English and secondary ed major Kate O’Brien said.

Kate’s mom, Susan O’Brien, had previously found a lump on her breast, yet no one thought it could be cancer. They all simply thought it was a cyst, no big deal. “I guess when it’s your mother, cancer seems surreal and completely unthinkable,” O’Brien said.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, except for non-melanoma skin cancers. The chance of developing breast cancer at some time in a woman’s life is about 1 in 7.

About 70 percent of breast cancers occur in women who have no identifiable risk factors; 80 percent of all breast lumps are benign.

“I immediately thought that my mom is too young to die, that this couldn’t be happening,” O’Brien said. Because of the position of her mother’s tumor, Su- san had to go through both chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

The second leading cause of cancer death in women is breast cancer. In 2006, about on her breast. I guess I was just too excited about Christmas to even start to think about my mom being sick,” 22-year-old Noelle Penney said. “I didn’t understand that cancer, stage three breast cancer which was what my mom had, would most likely result in death.”

States. Women living in the United States have the highest rate of breast cancer in the world.

“My mom would tell us that whenever she felt down, she’d close her eyes and picture the word ‘FAITH’ in pewter letters. It really helped her get through a crazy time,” O’Brien said.

Today, Susan is cancer-free. The good news, she now joins the over 2 million breast cancer survivors living in the United States. The bad news, not all women are as lucky as Susan O’Brien.

In 2006 alone, about 40,970 women died of breast cancer not even including women in previous years. Maryann Penney was one of those women who lost in the battle against breast cancer.

212,920 new cases of invasive breast cancer were diagnosed in women living in the United

“I was in the sixth grade when my parents told my brother and I that my mom had found a lump

BREAST CANCER, Page 3