WOMAN WISE: Sharing Strength for Survival: Family Support Helps in the Fight Against Breast Cancer

By Susan Maltby

“Mommy, if Grandma had breast cancer, and you have breast cancer, does that mean I’m going to get breast cancer?” asks 10-year-old Emma Smith. “Mommy, are you afraid of dying?” asks her 8-year-old brother Justin. Their mother, Sharon Smith, 42, only halfway through her breast cancer chemotherapy treatments, searches for the answers she desperately wishes she could give her children. 

Winning the fight against breast cancer requires a positive attitude, courage, focus and determination. For patients who are mothers, battling to live and care for children is an added struggle that demands the deepest level of tenderness, honesty and openness.

Nationwide annually, more than 215,990 women and 1,450 men will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and approximately 40,110 women and 470 men will die of the disease. Breast cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death for women in the U.S., according to the Mayo Clinic. Statistics from The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation estimates that in Los Angeles County this year, 6,690 women will be diagnosed and 1,105 will die.

Two years ago, Martina Rosso, a 38-year-old Long Beach mom, had to face the trauma of breast cancer. “I had a lumpectomy. They suspected it was nothing, but it didn’t turn out that way,” says Rosso. “That initial stage is horrible. From the diagnosis to the pathology report is the hardest time because of all the unknowns. You don’t know the monster you’re dealing with yet.”