Laura’s Story:Laura discovered a lump in her breast in July of 1998. After seeing a surgeon, the mammogram showed nothing. The surgeon decided to remove the lump to ease Laura’s mind, so the whole thing was quite a non-event. Or so Laura thought…

As the incision was healing, Laura began poking around, finding another lump. She called the doctor, and could hear him shaking his head in befuddlement. He said he could only imagine it was scar tissue and sent her back to the surgeon. During this visit, the concern was very palpable.  The doctor took a biopsy of the lump and decided to remove it too.

Laura woke up, coming out of anesthesia, to the doctor sitting beside her. When Laura asked the doctor to explain, his response was: “Metastatic, poorly differentiated, infiltrating ductal carcinoma involving two of fifteen auxiliary lymph nodes.” In other words, it was breast cancer, and a bad type at that.

Laura’s road to wellness was a long one. She began swimming to help with her recovery and was encouraged to try the Danskin Triathlon by a colleague. She competed in Danskin and a couple others and then moved on from it. It wasn’t until several years after this, however, that Laura’s life as a cancer survivor really began…