Thanks to the organizations who donate to provide scholarships. I could not have attended otherwise. I hope this is the starting point for further work toward eliminating b.c.

This is my first time attending the Annual Advocacy Training Conference, and I can tell it will not be the last! I am 26 years old now and came with a group of outstanding and amazing women survivors of breast cancer. Even though I am by far the youngest in the group, I feel exchanging stories has been a very enriching experience.

I was one when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and she passed away when I was 12. I have not thought about breast cancer or my experience losing my mother in many years, and being here for this conference has helped me process this confusing and missing part of myself: my mother’s death. Through telling others my years of seeing my mother fight breast cancer and then the feeling of sadness afterwards, and learning what others have gone through, has helped me process and translate the deep dark places of my heart into action and empowerment to help other women, and finally: to fight for equality and justice in the health care system and beyond…

This conference has begun the dialogue within myself and I hope soon, outside myself in the community and world.  I wish there was a little more included in the conference on lesbian rights and health. As we fight for women’s rights for health care and equality, we need to recognize that many lesbians are afraid to go through traditional medical hospitals because of fear of mistreatment and of “coming out” to her doctor, nurses, and other clinicians. Furthermore, many lesbians are ashamed of themselves and of their bodies…I hope in the future there could at least be a workshop on lesbian/LGBT health and breast cancer.

Sue love always has the ability to give women hope that she will find a cure for this disease.  After a day of a lot of sometimes overwhelming information, it was a perfect way to end the day with her upbeat hope!!!

As a first time attendee  I am so pleased to be here.  I have been waiting for 5 years to do this.  I know this will be the begining of many conferences to come. As a 7 year breast cancer survivor I know the importance of advocacy. I work with and for Women of Color Breast Cancer Survivor Support Project and I have an agenda for the ladies when I return to the office.  It is going to be my mission to have each and every women who is serious about the business of breast cancer to attend this conference. Then and only then we could put our collective idea to action.

I have heard so many wonderful things about the NBCCF Conference and now I have first hand experience.  Look out ladies here I come.

I am a 14 1/2 year BC survivor. I feel so empowered after this exposure to a plethra of information (which I have to digest)! I am grateful that my BFF encouraged (and hounded me) to attend. I participate on a local level in BC outreaches, but the NBCC takes the experience to an entirely different plane!!

This is my 11th conference - I have been coming here since 1999.  Last year I was lucky enough to have my daughter attend the conference with me.  She was one when I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  This year is her 2nd conference and she is graduating from high school soon and heading to college in the fall.  I hope that I have trained her well to become involved and ask lots of questions when it comes to our health and our bodies.  I had always hoped that there would be some answers by the time she was old enough to worry about it.  That time is approaching and there still aren’t answers.    But still we work towards the eradication of this disease.

from NJ for the past 10 years.Each year I continue to learn more and more about breast cancer and I come away from the conference invigorated and renewed.LM

This is my second year coming to this conference, and I am excited to come back next year.  It is such a great conference, where I’ve met so many wonderful people.  I am a senior in high school and I will be heading off to college in the fall and I look forward to bringing breast cancer advocacy to my fellow students.  I feel it is very important to know as much as we can about breast cancer to know what women everywhere are fighting against (including my mom, who was diagnosed when I was a year old, and is now a  16 year survivor).  I have learned so much here and I cannot wait to learn more in the coming days and years.

After completing most of my 18-month treatment that began with a mastectomy in December 2007, I came to this conference with trepedation. Yes, I wanted to learn more about the breast cancer community, what’s out there, what’s not. I especially wanted to know more about the role of policy advocacy, my special area of study as a docotral candidate. My past experience in media and academia led me to believe that I did not have to take the many indignaties that I had faced this past year lying down (pun intended). After fighting to overcome so many trials these last 18 months, both financial, personal and medical, I was ready to raise the window shade a little bit, to peek outside and see what the horizon followoing breast cancer held for me, the changed me. I came to this conference for answers. But all roads seemed to lead to guess where? Project Lead, that program that I was determined to avoid, for the time being anyway. I didn’t want to see the science of it all, the cells, how they behave or did behave inside my body without my permission or my invite. I didn’t want to see those little creatures that had almost taken my life so soon after my escape. I wanted to avoid looking them in the eye. But then I met two women in the Exhibit Hall who made me think twice. One was a 14-year survivor who had found a new life’s mission as a result of participating in Project Lead. She had helped design programs, she said, for African American women, sat on research boards and made her voice heard in ways her former career as a caterer would never have predicted. Project Lead had helped her make a difference in the lives of women in ways that catering never could. The other woman, fresh from treatment, said she had already sat on consumer review boards and was ready to delve into Project Lead because, as she said, “I’m ready! I want to know everything” about the disease. Ready? Was I? I didn’t think so. But these women encouraged me. Their enthusiasm, their beaming faces inspired me. Maybe I could do it too. Project Lead, huh? Well, maybe not today. But soon. Knowledge, after all, is power! More important, knowledge heals!!!

Watch out Iowa and the Cedar Valley. Seven Iowans are being trained as healthcare reform advocates in Washington, DC. We are going to return and change the environmental health system.