By Kathy LaTour

The CURE editorial staff just returned from New York City and the American Society of Magazine Editors’ National Magazine Awards, where the special issue on breast cancer [Fall 2003] was honored as one of five finalists for the best single-topic issue of 2003. While we didn’t win the award, we were thrilled to be considered in the same category with such superior magazines as Rolling Stone, National Geographic, Wired and The Oxford American (which won the award).

Sarah Weddington, who wrote “Finding Oxygen” [read article], was used to uphill battles when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Having won the landmark Roe v. Wade case in 1973, she’s thought to be the youngest person to win a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In the photo above, the only one taken of Weddington that day, she is shown with her former husband Ron [left], former Texas congressman George Mahon and her mother. She has since been named one of the most influential lawyers of the 20th century and has advised presidents on issues of leadership and women’s rights.

Heidi Schultz Adams became an advocate for young adults with cancer after her own bout with sarcoma at age 26 [see CURE, Summer 2003]. She is now the executive director of Planet Cancer, the organization that addresses young adult issues, and in January, she and her husband became the proud parents of twins, Norah and Mason.

You met Dallas County Criminal Judge Karen Greene in our special survivors’ issue in December 2002. At that time, she talked of her involvement in a clinical trial for a new breast cancer vaccine to stave off recurrence for her stage 3 diagnosis of breast cancer in 1999. In this issue, we take you to the next chapter of her journey as she has a suspicious MRI that leads to some discussion about whether her cancer recurred. It had not, but her new fight is with the insurance company that refused to cover the MRI.