By Heidi schultz Adams

The fight against breast cancer is waged on many levels: in families, communities, and nations. But at the heart of a breast cancer diagnosis is an intensely personal battle fought over and over, one individual at a time. Drugs, radiation, and surgical techniques only go so far. Where those end, each person must reach deep inside for resources she may never have known she had.

Here are the stories of four women who have beaten the odds, each a remarkable, living illustration of the strengths that sustain us in the fight against cancer.

Determination
Ildiko Strehli grew up training as an elite athlete in Hungary. At 30, a newlywed, she had just moved to Pennsylvania when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995. Undeterred, she taught skiing full-time during radiation and chemotherapy.

“It wasn’t so much that skiing was important, as to keep on with my life,” she says. “To feel I am in charge. I didn’t want cancer to change the essence of who I was.”

Afterwards, Strehli and her husband moved to Utah, where she discovered bobsledding and rose to world-class status. Two years later, a recurrence sidelined her for a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction. Then came the announcement: Women’s bobsled would be an Olympic event.

“It gave me a reason to live,” she says. “I wanted to take the pink ribbon to the Olympics to show you can achieve your dreams, even after going through breast cancer twice.” She was competing within a month after surgery, although unable to even lift her arms over her head. They named the team “Sled Full of Hope.”

But the International Olympic Committee nixed the idea of a pink ribbon on the sled. No logos, they said. Hungarian officials warned her to obey, and she did. The sled’s sole decoration was the word “Hungary”—written in huge, unmistakable pink ribbons of script. That day, although her team did not medal, Strehli won.

“I didn’t fight that long for someone at the last second to say, ‘Sorry, but you have to give up what brought you all the way here.’”

Today, archery is Strehli’s new passion. She plans to win an Olympic medal for the United States, her adopted country, in 2008. Watch for her—she’ll be the one with the pink quiver.

Knowledge
“I’m such an engineer type,” says Jane Reese-Coulbourne wryly. “My approach was always to gather data and figure out the choices.” When she was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer in 1990, data presented a stark picture: a 30-40% chance of living five years. She might make it to her 40th birthday. She might not.

After researching her options, she chose a phase II dosing trial, where her chemotherapy dosage increased each round until they hit tolerance—a devastating regimen, particularly without today’s antinausea medications.
“I felt that I had one shot,” says Reese-Coulbourne. “I wanted the big guns. And if it didn’t work, at least I’d know I did everything I could.” Eight grueling rounds later, she was declared cancer-free.

A year later, Reese-Coulbourne helped start the National Breast Cancer Coalition, which promotes advocacy, research, and access to care. Today, she consults with nonprofits, government, and pharmaceutical companies on cancer-related issues. Recent projects include developing compassionate use and expanded access programs for new drugs. “Because I understand all the parts—business, patients, government—I can help people talk to each other,” she says. “But what’s always number one for me is, ‘What’s the benefit for the patient?’ Because that’s what it’s really all about.”

Hope
In 1997, 33-year-old Judy Pickett was diagnosed with breast cancer. Since then, she has faced it twice more. She has also run nearly 100 races nationwide—once carrying the Olympic torch—to raise awareness about early detection, particularly in young women. "This is the race I've been training for my whole life," she says.

Before each race, she speaks in the host city about advocacy and early detection. But things changed after her second recurrence.

" My original intent was awareness and education," says Pickett. "After my third diagnosis, I also focused on hope. I say, 'Look! Almost seven years down the road, I'm still running, still strong—and you can be, too.'

" There are new treatments all the time. After the third diagnosis, I ran two races on Taxotere, bald as a baby. It wasn't even available when I was treated the first time.

" There's so much progress that people shouldn't give up on their hopes and dreams," she says. "They don't have to. I'm a living example of that."

Acceptance
Twenty years is several lifetimes in the fight against cancer. Ask 52-year-old Angie Augur, who has lived with breast cancer since 1983.

For the first decade, the recurrences were localized, treated with lumpectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, and a
bilateral mastectomy. Then, in 1996, the cancer spread to her liver and bones.

“When they told me I had liver lesions, it sounded like a death sentence,” says Augur. “But then it was a year later, and things weren’t all that much worse.” Today, she keeps the disease in check with cutting-edge treatment, including radiation, Xeloda® (capecitabine), and Taxotere® (docetaxel).

“When I look back, if someone had told me on day one that I was going to spend the next 20 years fighting these battles, I would have thrown up my hands and said, ‘I can’t do that!’” she reflects. “But when you take it one step at a time, you learn from each step. You learn to accept it, live with it. Then you can handle it. Whatever it’s going to take to face the things ahead of me, God will give it to me. And when I look at it that way, there’s no reason to be fearful.”

Faith
“Have a blessed day,” is the cheerful message on Renee Johnson Cole's answering machine—a simple message that packs extraordinary power, when you consider that Johnson Cole was diagnosed with breast cancer 10 years ago at 31, within a year of losing her son in a car accident. Since then, she has endured spinal metastases and more than 20 surgeries, including a hysterectomy and removal of both breasts.

In the midst of her own health problems, Johnson Cole left corporate America to minister to others. “My life dictated to me what my purpose was: not to have a testimony but to be a testimony to the power of God and medicine and all of it working together,” she says. “I find strength in helping others. I’m walking in my destiny.”

Her ministry is active, motivating. She encourages participation and responsibility. “Dare to care about yourself,” she challenges. “Do not yield to your diagnosis, but act with a sound mind. Know your body. Educate yourself.”
Today, she continues hormone therapy and bone-strengthening treatments. And wherever she is, she shares her message with patients, families, caregivers, and medical professionals.

“In life, we’re like a caterpillar and a butterfly,” she says. “The end of life to a caterpillar is the beginning of life to a butterfly. One way or another, we will all soar. And when it’s my time to fly, I will have done my job.”

These four remarkable women, their lives transformed by extraordinary adversity, are vibrant examples of the strength within us all. Four lives that show us how—with determination, knowledge, hope, faith, and acceptance—we can all soar.