It started with a lump in my right breast. After an ultrasound, the doctor said it was a cyst. No problem. Six months later, it was bigger. Another ultrasound showed it was now 2 cysts. I decided to have them removed. The surgeon took a sample and sent it off to be analyised. Two weeks later, I had a total right mastectomy. It was in 3 out of 8 lymph nodes. Then started 6 months of chemo. I ended up in the hospital every month for a blood transfusion. After the 4th visit to the hospital, my oncologist - Dr. Richard Toser - said the cure was going to kill me. The chemo stopped. 25 sessions of radiation followed. People would say to me "What an awful thing to go through". I would reply, "I'm not going through anything - my family and friends are. I had the disease - they had to watch me suffer." When I think back on it, I am in such pain thinking about what my husband and children and family and friends went through. I can never repay them for what they went through and what they did for me. I know that the many, many prayers sent to the Heavens above played a great deal in my recovery. I am now "cancer free" and with God's help I will stay that way to watch my grandchildren grow.

Terri Campanella
Hamilton, Canada