Debbie Thomas was not going to schedule her yearly mammogram in 2016, but her husband Tim had other ideas. “Every year, I have such a horrible time with mammograms on my right side,” the 61-year-old unit clerk at Taylorville Memorial…
Annual screening mammograms are the most effective way to diagnose breast cancer. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said only 65 percent of women age 40 and older had a mammogram in the last two years. Screening mammograms…
Jennifer Anderson had a strong support network as she battled breast cancer—friends, family and an unexpected new companion that she calls her “cancer kitty.” In October 2016, she heard faint noises coming from outside her house. Kneeling in her yard…
Ally Fairfield was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 23 years old, and an army mobilized to fortify her for the difficult journey. Ally’s Army, a group of 30 family members and friends has rallied around the owner of…
Kara Pecoraro woke up panicky from a vivid nightmare. In it, she needed to see a doctor, but no one was willing to take her to one. When she awoke that night in mid-February 2016, the New Berlin mom and…
Facing cancer wasn’t the hardest thing Jennie Creswell ever had to do. Telling her then sixth-grade son, Harrison, that she had been diagnosed with cancer was. Her son’s first words nine years ago when he heard the news still make…
Today, you can catch Lindsay Roush at the rink with the local roller derby team. But a few short years ago, she felt sidelined by her weight. Since 2013, she’s lost more than 200 pounds with the help of lifestyle…
It was the intense cramping that woke her up that cold, January morning. She had noticed some recent weight gain around her stomach and it had become sore to the touch. After taking some pain relievers, Monica Hay, then a…
The call came on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day seven years ago. Michelle Buscher, then 42 years old, was soundly slumbering, enjoying the last day of a three-day weekend before going back to work. Her phone rang promptly at 8…
When Carol Harms went in for her annual mammogram this February and a suspicious spot was found, she didn’t give it too much thought. There’s very little presence of cancer in her family. And she had been feeling intermittently unwell…