Four sisters, four double mastectomies

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110306/LIVEWELL01/703069947#four-sisters-four-double-mastectomies

Published Sunday March 6, 2011

By Cathy Howard
Special to livewellnebraska.com

Scroll down to watch a video interview of the five Brown sisters about the death of their mother and the impact it had on their lives.
***

My mother was beautiful.

We all know our mothers are beautiful. But Mom was movie-star lovely. Tall and slender with masses of dark hair, dewy brown eyes, and cheekbones to die for, she could have stepped right out of an RKO feature film.

She must have been surprised, after growing up as an only child, to marry Dad and become the mother of 10 children. But nobody could ever tell. Our friends always said we had the prettiest, youngest-looking mother around.

Every day, she'd sneak away to her piano. I'd sit close beside her on the bench watching her elegant hands glide across the keyboard. Sometimes, I'd sniff the Avon scented candle on top of the piano — the same candle that sits on top of the same piano in my own living room all these years later. I'd savor that little bit of time with my mother. As the oldest, I didn't have her to myself very often.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was only 45 years old. Not for one minute did we think she'd die. It was unthinkable. Even when she became bed-bound and could barely walk to the bathroom, we refused to believe she wouldn't get better.

FULL story, photos, and video at link.

[joshcryer]

1. I hope the fifth sister isn't hit by this. Amazing story of survival when you think about it.

[madmax]

2. My mother in law had 6 sisters

she including 4 all died of breast cancer. One never got it and is still alive.

At Duke UMC there is an oncologist who specializes in breast cancer clusters within a family. I believe Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz who is a breast cancer survivor has something called the BRACA (?)Gene which is an indicator of a predispostion to cancer.

We're making some progress but, not fast enough.