Annemarie White - Telling It Like It Is : 23 Breast Cancer Journeys

I dedicate this book to those amazing women and men whose journeys I have shared. I applaud their courage, their humility, their support. This book is my tribute, and this is their story.

The National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) is the leading community-funded national organisation in Australia supporting and promoting research into the prevention, detection and treatment of breast cancer.

Since the NBCF was established in 1994, over $55 million has been awarded to 230 research projects across every state and territory, to improve the health and wellbeing of those affected by breast cancer.

Research programs funded by the NBCF cover every aspect of breast cancer, from increasing understanding of genetics to improving ways to support women and their families.

Underpinning the NBCFs approach is the National Action Plan for Breast Cancer Research and Funding, a blueprint for accelerating our knowledge and understanding of breast cancer. The National Action Plan centres on funding collaborations with other like-minded organisations including the state based Cancer Councils and Cancer Australia. This ensures a long term, cost effective and coordinated approach to research, while providing an opportunity to accurately monitor and report outcomes to supporters.

The NBCF relies on corporate and community support to continue its work and appreciates the support of HarperCollins Publishers.

Key fundraising initiatives of the NBCF are Octobers Pink Ribbon campaigns, including Pink Ribbon Breakfasts, Pink Ribbon Day, Pink Magazine, Global Illumination and Pink Ribbon Licensed Product. In addition, the NBCF works with a range of corporate partners on cause-related campaigns.

The NBCF also works with third parties on major fund raising events such as the Mothers Day Classic, a national walk or run for breast cancer held annually, and reaches the youth market through the Fashion Targets Breast Cancer campaign.

They say if you want to make God laugh, you tell her your plans We never really know how our lives will be lived out what curve balls will come out of nowhere!

In 2003, my life was as close to perfect as I could imaginemy first book, Women Who Win, was selling well and I was enjoying my work in media and public relations. I was fighting fit and competing with success internationally in Masters sport. I had the body and vigour of an athlete and I had signed a six-month contract to work in media in Athens at the 2004 Olympics.

On 9 May that year I was diagnosed with breast cancer. A doctor had taken me into her surgery and bluntly said, I guess you know you have cancer. Timidly, I replied that Id hoped I didnt. As it turned out I had a very aggressive Grade 3 tumour that was, fortunately, picked up early by a BreastScreen mammogram.

That weekend was Mothers Day and I gathered my family close as I looked death in the face; Id already survived a near death experience with toxic shock, and septicaemia three years earlier in 2000. But the enormity of this horrendous disease opened the floodgates of my emotions. I was in tears, totally shocked and so scared that I was going to die. Death terrified me. Cancer is a scary word, and the reality of dying is truly frightening. It felt that my life was in tatters.

After months of chemotherapy, radiation treatment and five years of medication, I regained my health. Life was good again, and I thought Id finished with all those curve balls. In 2007 I was celebrating my recovery from breast cancer with a zest and passion for living a great life. Then in December that year, my husband, Peter, died suddenly and unexpectedly of a massive heart attack.

With that traumatic event, the death of my soulmate of 36 years, my old wounds and fears were resurrected and came to the surface. Compounded with my grief for Peter were the memories of my own emotional momentswhen I had faced my own mortality. I realised then that although I was healthy, you never really get over breast cancer. It is always there and you just live with it.

One of the ways I have chosen to make sense of where I am at, and to show gratitude for my life, is to write a book on modern-day heroes who have fought the battle against breast cancer. This book is a compendium of stories profiling the lives of a number of people who have been touched by breast cancer.

I am donating my proceeds of the book to the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) because I have no doubt that my own great health, and indeed my survival, is totally due to the advances in treatment and medication over the past years funded by the NBCF. And that is also the reason that I am honoured and proud to be an Ambassador for the NBCF.

My hope is that research breakthroughs will mean that in the future a cure for breast cancer will be found so that no one will have to travel the journey that I had to.

I had been listening to my body and I had a deep sense that there was something wrong. So I booked in to see a third doctor, who told me outright that there was no way it could be anything more than an old blocked milk duct from breastfeeding and to stop worrying.

F rom the first moment I started chatting with Taryna Michelle, a vibrant and effervescent young woman of 37, I knew she was an inspiration. She is a successful businesswoman and a mother to four girls, aged nine to 17, and life is now exciting and full of promise.

But that wasnt always so. Just four years ago Taryna felt she was living her life in a combat zone. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at only 33 and at the same time was embroiled in bitter and confrontational divorce proceedings after escaping from a volatile 13-year marriage.

Life was throwing Taryna an almighty challengeand she was up for it.

I didnt really know anything about breast cancer until I was diagnosed. I guess unless you are affected by it, or someone you know has it, most young people dont know too much about it. Until Kylie Minogue got cancer, there certainly wasnt much in the media; not like now. Sure, there was Melissa Etheridge and Belinda Emmett, but apart from that, as a young person, I saw breast cancer as an over-50s disease.

Tarynas diagnosis is a story of her courage and dogged persistence when she intuitively felt that something was wrong with her bodybut no one would listen.

Ive always been a big believer in listening to my body. I believe that women are very intuitive. We should always listen to our bodies and trust what it is telling us. I know now how important it is to really listen and feel! she says emphatically.