Beatriz Terrazas

On a humid May morning in Texas, the Rev. Sheron Patterson, DMin, stands on the porch of a tidy red-brick home. The front lawn boasts new sod, and the inside smells of fresh paint and wood. Here in a southern Dallas subdivision, several Habitat for Humanity homes are under construction. But the senior pastor of Highland Hills United Methodist Church is helping dedicate this house—one built by cancer survivors she recruited, as well as their friends and families. 

"This is a work of the Lord,”  Patterson says of Breast Cancer Builds, the fledgling program she founded to enlist breast cancer survivors to build Habitat homes. “Showing up early in the rain, in the cold. Hammering, sawing, nailing, hitting our fingers, almost slicing our hands. Truly, God is amazing.”

Patterson conceived Breast Cancer Builds in 2007 while recovering from a double mastectomy. Breast cancer survivors, grateful and ready to help others, are proof, she says, that “there is life after breast cancer, and it can be better and sweeter than it was before.”

Allied with the Habitat for Humanity ministry of another local church, Patterson reached out through local media and her own website, asking for 200 volunteers to “pay forward” fruits of their survival. 

Bubbling with joy, laughter, and love for other women they didn’t even know, they came. From as close by as Dallas and as far as suburbs an hour away, they came. For eight consecutive Saturdays beginning this past March, they came. 

Survivor Candy Sheehan, 53, arrived the first day clad in jeans, boots, and sunglasses, and relishing the idea of building a home for a deserving family.

“During my treatments … I was on the receiving end of so much support and blessings and meals and everything, that it was really good for me to give back,” Sheehan says.

For community activists like her, who are involved in a variety of projects, much of the work focuses on funding and policies, she says. “This is a thing—you actually build it, you can touch it and feel it. It’s encouraging that life will continue in this place that we are building, and will become someone’s home. That’s a strong message.”

Juanita Valdez, a single mother of two boys, has sometimes seemed a bit overwhelmed by the help she is receiving.

“They’ve been through so much and they’re trying to help somebody else,” she says of the women who raised walls, pounded nails, and cut siding. “It makes me feel wonderful.”

The project has brought together “a rainbow coalition,” notes Breast Cancer Builds volunteer coordinator Linda Lydia, 58, a local real estate agent. 

“We’re all drawn to it for the same reason,” says Lydia, an 11-year survivor. “If we’re not survivors we have a family member or a friend. … Such a bond develops with people who’ve been through this disease.” 

Elaine Linn, a four-year survivor, quickly became a favorite among the volunteers. More than once she joked about her obvious lack of hair ever since cancer treatment in 2004. “But hey, I don’t have bad hair days.”

It’s a privilege to have a body well enough, and in shape enough, to come out and participate, says Linn, 65, an accountant. “I’m in great debt to the doctors and women that have come before. … It’s very important that people who have just been diagnosed know it’s not a death sentence. There are things beyond that.”

That was precisely the message Patterson hoped to impart with Breast Cancer Builds. 

She echoes it in her closing words at the home’s dedication: “I am a survivor of breast cancer, and on Tuesday of this week I celebrated one year of life. … I call this a gratitude project because I am grateful, and we’re showing how grateful we are to the world.” 

For more information about Breast Cancer Builds, visit Patterson's website at 

Articles

Breast cancer survivors find a constructive outlet for their altruism. 

Building Futures

MERCERVILLE, N.J. — Mary Ellen Scherl carefully paints Brenda Esaw-Howard’s right breast with a bright purple liquid rubber. Then she lays wet strips of gauze across the rubber to adhere and dry, creating a mold of Brenda’s breast.

Mary Ellen will later take this mold and fill it with a resin hand-tinted to match Brenda's skin tone.

 When finished, the mold will become one of the life-casts that breast cancer survivors are contributing to Mary Ellen's Mamorial project, an installation she launched in 2005 to educated people about the disease and to honor survivors. Women at all stages of the disease — pretreatment, post-treatment, and even those genetically at risk who have their breasts removed to prevent development of cancer &mdash; participate in Mamorial. 

This crisp spring day, Brenda is one of more than 30 women

 who came to the Robert Wood Johnson Hamilton Center for Health and Wellness in Mercerville to make molds of their affected breasts. Almost a dozen women volunteered to help with the casting. In between casting sessions, the women would enjoy lunch, harp music, massages and line dancing lessons. 

When Janet Finn-Hollenback, the center’s oncology nurse educator, saw a story about Mamorial on TV a year ago, she recognized its healing potential. Her grandmother and great-aunt had the disease, and her sister is a survivor. Janet is working with Mary Ellen to exhibit Mamorial here in the near future.

Mamorial is open to both men and women, though only women signed up this day. Between 1975 and 2002, less than 1 percent of breast cancer cases occurred in men, according to the American Cancer Society. But the disease is diagnosed yearly in more than 200,000 women in this country. And as of 2005, there were more than 2 million survivors.

For a woman, breast cancer affects more than her health. It threatens her very identity. Physiologically, the female breast may be fatty tissue and milk ducts, but emotionally it’s much more. It is a lover’s touch, a bond with a nursing baby. It is a favorite dress or bathing suit. It is at once her beauty, sexuality and sensuality. 

“My identity definitely was my breasts for the simple reason all my life I have been teased because my breasts were so large,” says Brenda, a seven-year survivor. “When you’re to the point where one is diseased and you may lose it, some women feel as though they are losing part of their identity.”

For her and others, today is as much about commemorating their breasts as it is about celebrating their lives.  

Two years ago, Mary Ellen exhibited some of her figurative sculptures

 in a show focused on breasts, and soon after that, in a show to benefit a breast cancer organization. That inspired the idea of using art to help fight the disease.

Mamorial now has 501(c)(3) charitable status, and survivors from 23 states so far have participated. Mary Ellen has 80 finished life-casts, with about 150 in production. Casting events are ongoing. She envisions Mamorial as a large-scale traveling installation, and so far has shown the work at art shows along the East Coast. 

This is a project that reaches beyond survivors, Mary Ellen says. “All of a sudden you see a classroom full of college students [coming] through with their professor and recognizing what’s going on with Aunt Joan, [their] mother, … grandmother.”

The exhibits also serve as a reminder to live healthily, she says. She displayed the life-casts in Orlando, Fla., early this year, and “A woman came up to me and said, ‘I’m a smoker, I have an 11-year-old, and I think I’m going to stop.’ ”

Today’s event began with volunteers learning to make the molds

 Maureen, a New York dental office manager, is Janet Finn-Hollenback’s sister.

In 2005, Maureen, 58, was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma in one breast and pre-cancerous cells in the other. As she prepared to have a double mastectomy and reconstruction, she said goodbye to her breasts in front of a hospital mirror.

“I love you and you’ve served me well, but you’ve got to go because I want to live,” she said.

When her husband told her reconstruction wasn’t necessary she said, “Honey, I’m not doing it for you; I’m doing it for me.”

Chemo made her so weak sometimes she couldn’t leave the house. She developed neutropenic fever and pneumonia. Still, she sees the cancer as a gift. 

“You become stronger; you find out who you are and what you’re made of,” she says. “And I became more spiritual and I found out who really loved me.”

“I get up every morning, I thank God I’m here,” she says. “I embrace the sun, embrace the rain. … To this day whenever I go shopping in the mall, I look around and I say, ‘My God, I’m in the mall. Wow, you can walk the whole mall and you can shop and not get tired.’ ”

After the casting, she signed her mold and turned in her testimonial.

“I really enjoyed doing it because it’s such an important part of your body that you’ve lost and then being memorialized … ” she says. “It’s just very emotional. It really is. I love it.”

Around midday, Gail Miller, an 11-year-survivor, pulls her long hair out of the way and lets Mary Ellen go to work.

 The mother of two teen girls was 35 when diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ of the left breast. She had a mastectomy and required no further treatment.

 “Most people have no clue what a mastectomy looks like,” says Gail, 46, a nurse at a Freehold, N.J., hospital. “The average person doesn’t know all the variations of the aftermath. What better way to promote this than to get out there and show people?”

Gail has never been hung up on image but had reconstructive surgery for her family.

“My girls being so young at the time I felt I wanted them to have an image of a ‘normal’ mom, and I knew my husband would not handle it as well if I came home with one breast and a scar,” she says.

Still, her first look in the mirror after surgery was painful. Her torso was punctured by drains and criss-crossed with sutures and staples where doctors had re-sectioned abdominal muscles to reconstruct her breast. 

“I look like a patchwork quilt,” she told her then-husband. 

Taking her in his arms, he said, “You are truly my velveteen rabbit.” 

It was a lesson in true beauty that she describes in her testimonial: 

True beauty cannot be altered or insulted. It endures all and will stand the test of time. Beauty is not what the media or magazines portray. It is a deep and intangible essence that only a heart can feel.

By the time it is Brenda’s turn to make her mold

, purple splotches speckle the floor and volunteers’ aprons. Laughter is plentiful. Her daughter Ebony White teasingly asks Mary Ellen if she had enough material for her mom’s abundant bosom. 

Brenda is community support coordinator for Trenton’s St. Francis Medical Center and a host on WIMG-AM radio and Mercer County’s WZBN-TV. Her husband is a pastor, and she has a deep faith in God.

Her cancer was diagnosed in November 2000; she had a partial mastectomy and began chemo in December. She had no reconstruction. Her last chemo treatment was on Holy Thursday the next year, “So Good Friday was actually Good Friday for me,” she says.

Mamorial is important because people “need to know and hear the different women’s stories,” she says. Society takes the “cancer” part of this disease seriously, but “when you speak about women’s breasts — breasts define a woman whether you care to say it or not.

“So of course that becomes a part of your makeup and who are,” she says. 

Mamorial is indeed a memorial where survivors can take comfort, where they can express themselves, where they can leave a part of themselves, she says.

“Although I haven’t had a recurrence, that’s in the back of my mind … ,” she tells Mary Ellen as the artist finishes her mold. “It’s comforting in knowing that somewhere around the world your breasts still exist.

, Brenda’s doctors discover cancer again in her right breast. At the time of this writing, she was still undergoing testing and considering all treatment options, including a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. “Whatever I need to do, I’m going to do,” she said. “I want to be finished with it.”  

In commemoration [and celebration], survivors create casts of breasts affected by cancer

Sculpting a Legacy

More than 10 million Americans are living with a history of cancer, yet the word still terrifies. The disease strikes almost randomly, and likewise chooses who lives, and who dies, indiscriminately. God, family, friends, and faith help us cope. But what about that other, less tangible quality? Sustained by traits we’re born with, the instinct to survive—and even childhood lessons&mdash;each survivor has that individual flame that burns within and pushes the spirit beyond simply surviving to thriving. You need only step outside your door to meet someone living a rich life despite having had cancer, or someone who has found that a cure isn’t necessary in order to live. Here, just outside the Dallas offices of 

, we introduce you to some survivors who have mined their own spiritual depths to renew their sense of meaning and joy.

, 76: consultant for Doncaster, a North Carolina-based a clothing company

 1982, age 52, stage 2 breast cancer, 13 of 20 lymph nodes affected

More than two decades ago, when JoAnne discovered the Virginia R. Cvetko Patient Education and Conference Center at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, she found hope. She started out as a patient in a support group, and within two years she was paying it forward by facilitating support groups herself. “It has meant a lot to me to be involved with those people,” she says 22 years later. Helping others this way has been a vital part of her recovery. “I’m here to give you hope,” she says. “I’m here to let you know you don’t really know what is down the road for you. … There is life after cancer.”

, 43: physical chemist at Abbott Laboratories in Irving, Texas

 2000, age 36, stage 4 follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma [small-cleaved cell type] 

 Chemotherapy and Rituxan (rituximab), a monoclonal antibody treatment 

When doctors discovered the fist-sized tumor between his lung and heart, Doug, son of a Michigan auto plant worker, leaned on lessons gleaned from his blue-collar upbringing. “My dad had this great work ethic. … It was fight, scratch, crawl to get ahead,” he says. That translated into the tenacity Doug needed to fight the disease. “I was not going to let cancer beat me. My family wasn’t going to be without a dad.” His three daughters, he says, are the reason he keeps fighting. He’s a member of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training, and despite dealing with a second recurrence of the cancer, he’s training for a half Ironman Distance Triathlon.

, 63:  office manager and executive assistant to director of a child care center for homeless children in Dallas

 1986, age 42, breast cancer, seven of 27 lymph nodes affected; 1993, recurrence in other breast; 2002, unrelated stage 1 lung cancer

 Mastectomy and chemotherapy for breast cancers; surgical removal of right upper lobe for lung cancer

 30 percent chance of survival first time; 85 percent chance of survival after chemotherapy second time; no other treatments necessary for lung cancer

Charolette, a wife, mother, and grandmother, has a poignantly honest sense of humor. Humor, she says, “is the only way you can get through so many difficult things that happen in your life.” One story she tells is of childhood accordion lessons and her breast catching in the instrument’s folds. “Who knew one day that wouldn’t be an issue?” she giggles. The ability to not take herself so seriously enabled her to begin piano lessons at age 60. “I practice every night, and my husband has to listen to every song.” she says. Her 13-year-old grandson, Brandon, plays cello and last Christmas they played 

, 27: math teacher and basketball coach at Euless Junior High School in Euless, Texas

 2002, age 22, with stage 4 lymphoblastic non-Hodgkin lymphoma

 Chemotherapy and peripheral stem cell transplant, unrelated donor

 30 percent chance of survival if tumor responded to chemotherapy

Dancing With the Enemy: Letting the Good Outweigh the Bad

, Meg cites a positive attitude as essential to healing. In her last year of college, just as her mother finished chemotherapy for breast cancer, doctors found an 18-centimeter tumor wrapped around Meg’s heart. Cancer is “an awful thing,” says Meg. “But there are still so many good days that come with it.”  Throughout her treatment, the moments she felt well were devoted to time with friends. No hair? No problem. “I still laughed. I still had fun,” she says. “It was my way of saying … ‘I’m not just going to sit in my house all day.’ ”

, 71: choir and theater arts teacher in Royse City, Texas

 1978, age 43, breast cancer, six of 12 lymph nodes affected; 2002, recurrence in her left lung

 Mastectomy and chemotherapy; one year later, preventive mastectomy of other breast; surgical removal of upper left lobe of lung and radiation for recurrence

 Lung recurrence is slow-growing; PET scans every six months to monitor two spots remaining on lung

Carolyn has gotten through two bouts of cancer with prayer, her husband’s support, and a steadfast commitment to making the most of the time she has. When her cancer was first diagnosed, her four daughters were in choir, school plays, and often on the road showing horses. Carolyn and her husband, Eddie, were volunteer choir directors at DeKalb’s First Baptist Church. With no time to feel sorry for herself, she worked right through treatment. When needed at church, she says, “I just slapped a wig on.” When shows went on at school, “all the teachers helped.” In spring of 2004, Carolyn retired from teaching in one district only to be rehired in another. She says her doctors’ positive attitudes have helped her live “as if I were cured.”

A photo essay of survivors who have found meaning in their lives.

Beatriz Terrazas

Building Futures

Sculpting a Legacy

From Surviving to Thriving

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