When I contacted you about a year ago, my daughter, Heaven Lee Ware, was 27 years old. She is an epileptic, who is unable to drive, and has a lot of mental problems. She had just gotten out of a mental home last year, after she had attempted suicide for about the 6^th or 7^th time. She was staying with me, because she had lost her apartment, when she asked me to look at something on her breast. I was shocked to find a massive lump on her left breast. She said it started several months before but with no insurance and not money, she had just hoped it would go away. Isn’t that what most 27 year old’s would do? I mean we are not trained to really worry about those types of things in our early years, especially if it is not something found in your family history. Her BRCA showed it was not something in her genes. I tried to get her scheduled for a mammogram as stated above, she had no insurance, because on her last birthday she was dropped from my work insurance due to her age. And with medical and mental problems, Heaven could not hold a job long enough to keep paying for personal insurance. No clinic would let her make an appointment for a mammogram without insurance or payment up front and even stated because of her age she probably would not have breast cancer. They just said to try Medicaid. We did, and she was not eligible for that either. I did not know what else to do – even my own personal doctor of 19 years would not see her! He did however tell me to try Health for All. They make you come in for an appointment (about a month out) to speak with a counselor to see if you qualify for their services. IF you do – they schedule your first appointment to see the Dr. (another month). And they would then have to schedule the mammogram (don’t know the wait on that). This is right after I spoke to you, so I explained what the issue was with the scheduler and that your organization said you would pay for the mammogram, and that lady got her right in that week.

The size of the lump and the ultrasound, warranted a biopsy, again – something your organization was willing to pay for. She was sent to a surgeon to do a biopsy at the local Cancer Clinic. The results came back as Invasive ductal carcinoma – Borderline stage 3 breast cancer. For the first time though in probably 13 years, Heaven said she did not want to die! God seems to work in mysterious ways for sure! Once diagnosed, the cancer clinic was able to get Heaven on Breast and cervical Medicaid. She is eligible for this as long as she is still being monitored by the cancer clinic.

Due to Heaven’s age and the size of the tumor, they wanted to do chemo first, hoping to shrink the mass. It shrunk some but not what they hoped for, plus, after the chemo, they found she had new growths that had formed in her lymph nodes. Those were sent for testing and found to be cancerous so they knew chemo was not her miracle. Heaven then had to do surgery. She wanted to remove both breast because she said she would never go through this again, but the surgeon told her that IF she got it back – she would NOT do chemo again – they would just automatically remove the breast. They did the lumpectomy and removed all the lymph nodes from her left armpit. It was a painful recovery, even for a someone so young. After she healed (approx.. 6 weeks) she had to start radiation. During all this, Heaven had moved into her own apartment, had gotten a job as a waitress but was promoted to manager and strived to get better. I had never seen her like this. She stayed on her anti-depressants, her epilepsy medication and did everything she was supposed to do during all the cancer stuff. Radiation was awful, but luckily a lady I work with had gone through radiation for her breast cancer and had some very expensive cream left over and let Heaven have it. She was like a mentor to her. After radiation, Heaven was told that she was at high risk for getting this again, so they wanted to have her take the chemo pill to try one last effort to make sure they got it all. She made it through about the half way point for this treatment but was told she made it further than they thought after everything else she had done. We have learned that not everyone that gets breast cancer does all these treatments. Only the most severe and the ones that are at high risk.

Heaven has been through a lot more than some people go through in a lifetime, but this time, she seems to have a purpose. My friend bought us all tickets to attend the Pink Alliance Surviving & Thriving luncheon that had a wonderful speaker who spoke about how cancer wasn’t the worst thing to happen to her, it had helped her. Heaven said that made her feel great because she said she felt the same way!

Heaven will always have some things different from normal in her life, but she is definitely a survivor and probably would not be, if it was not for you and this organization!

I give my permission for you to use these images and the message in any promotional product(s) you may need, or for any purpose that could be beneficial to your organization. You are always my angels and I could not be more thankful for you all!

— Sylvia W.