thinkpink October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
INSIDE Page 3: How philanthropy, volunteerism and advocacy and can help in the fight against breast cancer Page 9: Understanding the causes of higher mortality rates in Latina women diagnosed with breast cancer Page 10: Tips for reducing stress and discomfort at your next mammogram
Waiting, hoping and coping Living with breast cancer By E.I. Hillin Staff Writer e.hillin@sonomawest.com
S
ue Simon and Stacy Simons have never met. If their paths ever crossed in life they didn’t notice it, but they have more in common than just a coincidentally similar last name. Both women have felt the crushing weight of a breast cancer diagnosis. Sue Simon lives in Sebastopol and is cancer-free. Stacy Simons lives in Occi-
dental and is currently combating cancer. The two women have very different lives, but in one way their stories are the same. They both are figuring out how to live day-by-day in the wake of breast cancer. For Sue Simon, breast cancer isn’t just a battle that marched into her life and then disappeared without a trace. It’s a painting above the fireplace, an old song on the radio or a billboard along the freeway. It’s an everyday type of presence. It’s in the background, but it’s always there. In one form or another since 1996, the year Simon was diagnosed, breast cancer
STRENGTH IN SUPPORT — Sue Simon, above, looks through a book given to her by coworkers in 1996 after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. On her dining table sits photos of Simon and her sisters. On the left is Michele who died from breast cancer in 2005, and on the right is a photo of Simon and her sister Cheryl, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013. Photo E.I. Hillin
has been present in her life. It stole her sister Michele in 2005, after an eight-year fight, and continues to plague her sister Cheryl, who was diagnosed in 2013. Simon, 66, is a retired school principal. A job opportunity at Kenilworth Junior High brought her to Sonoma County in 1993. She has called Sebastopol home ever since. The oldest of three girls, Simon grew up in Compton, where her parents owned a pizza shop. She said her father attempted to recreate his own Middle Eastern upbringing, where family was the one of strongest bonds in life, to their home in southern California. That family bond would become increasingly significant to Simon’s life as an adult. When Simon was 45, she went in for a routine women’s check up. When
See Coping, Page 6
October 4, 2018