Susan McBride

I'm not sure anyone goes through a cancer scare unchanged. I know it changed me in so many ways. But I was fortunate to have had a rare cancer that's slow-growing and one that allowed me to skip the chemical cocktails that would have put me into early menopause.

I have always had dense, cyst-prone breasts, so I didn't think much of it when my OB/GYN discovered a lump on a routine physical exam in August of 2006. 'It's a cyst,' she assured me, and I believed her. Several weeks after, I had a negative mammogram, which should have reassured me. Only something felt wrong about this particular lump.

Every time I see documentaries or infomercials about little kids with cancer, I just freak out. It affects me on the highest emotional level... Anytime I think about it, it makes me sadder than anything I can think of.