Terri Barron
When Terri Barron was 43 years old, she picked up a brochure at a doctor's office and shoved it in her purse to remind herself to schedule her first mammogram.
Six months later, when she finally scheduled the procedure, it wasn't because of the brochure.
"I woke up one morning with a lump," she says. "It was the last type of cancer I worried about."
Today, the 49-year-old carries around a different reminder.
In the depths of her large leather purse, she keeps a pair of photographs from her 44th birthday party. They show a tired woman surrounded by hats her family gave her at the beginning of 14 months of an intense chemotherapy trial that took away her hair, but, she believes, saved her life.
"I look at these pictures and I can hardly believe this was me," she says.
She doesn't pull them out very often. They're there so she'll always remember how fragile life is and that she's willing to do anything in the name of awareness.
Anything.
This spring, Terri became a volunteer for the Angel Care Breast Cancer Foundation, a Seattle-based nonprofit that matches survivors with newly diagnosed patients seeking mentors.
In June, she reluctantly posed as Ms. June in the foundation's annual fundraising calendar, sitting in a stream wearing scarcely more than a pair of angel wings.
The indignity was worth enduring, because as she well knows, life is short and cancer sometimes comes back.
"I think you always have that worry," she says. "Once you've been diagnosed you live with that kind of fear."
So she has fun with her husband and her children and her job and sees each day for what it is: an opportunity.
And in the bottom, back part of a drawer in her bedroom she keeps the best of the hats she received on her 44th birthday.
"Just in case," she whispers.
* Terri suggests that people who want individual or group support to help them deal with their diagnosis and treatment should contact:
Angel Care Breast Cancer Foundation: 425-861-5655
Wellness House: 575-6686
* On Nov. 18 from 1-3 p.m. Terri will be selling and signing the foundation's $15 calendars at Borders Book and Music at 700 E Washington Ave. in Union Gap.
Check out a sample of the calendar (Terri is June) and also order a few here - CALENDAR
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