When Walter Melcher learned he had Stage 4 throat cancer, he knew the prognosis wasn’t good. Just four years earlier, he had lost his first wife to a 13-year battle with breast cancer. Six months later, while he was undergoing…
Even though breast cancer ran in her family, Angela Moore didn’t think anything was seriously wrong when she felt an unusual mass in her breast. She knew to be alert for a lump in the breast. Her mother had passed…
When Vicki Simmons learned that she had Stage 2 breast cancer last October, it confirmed what she had suspected when she first discovered the lump in her breast a week before. “That was a long day,” she recalled when she…
The first day of the year didn’t start out well for Yolanda Marucco. While most of us are thinking about how long we’ll be able to keep our resolutions, Yolanda was at her mother’s house in Taylorville when a sudden…
For many of us, a summer tan is like a gold medal—something we work the whole season to achieve, and, when we get it, we proudly show it off. Unfortunately, with a great tan comes great responsibility. Ultraviolet (UV) light…
Kristan Becker Hoffman learned that the lump in her breast was cancer. It was a hard-hitting confirmation that would change her life and her family’s, but she was prepared to face it and seek the treatment to put her on…
Karla Dirks was looking forward to a great road trip to St. Louis with her sister, but it ended with an injury followed by more bad news. While attending a Cardinals’ playoff game in 2011, Karla fell and hit the…
If it weren’t for a visit to Memorial’s Be Aware Women’s Fair, Barbi Walter is convinced she wouldn’t be alive today. And it’s taught her to never ignore minor aches and pains because they could be warning signs of larger…
Just because you don’t have a family history of breast cancer, it doesn’t mean you’re safe. Jennifer Finley learned that when she was diagnosed a decade ago in her early 30s. Her first child, Nicholas, was just a baby when…
On April 2, Stephen Wilkin was feeling tired. It was a Monday, and after a weekend of family time and riding his motorcycle, he assumed he was coming down with a cold or the flu. He called his physician clinic,…