One family's journey with breast cancer | Tallahassee Blogs

Nana has been in my life since I was a little girl. I tell my children all the time that family is not just who you are born too, but it is also the special people that God puts in your life. For all of us, Nana was our family. In high school I would come home and if my heart hurt because of a boy, she knew just what to say. She put up with us when we were moody teenagers and loved us unconditionally. She was at our graduations, weddings, and at the births of our children.

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When I had my children and went to work, Nana came to take care of my babies. When I got divorced, she swooped in to pick up the pieces of my heart and pushed me when I didn?t know how to go on. She made sure that the children and I remembered that we always had to pick ourselves up and go on and that we didn?t need a home, money, or material things as long as we had each other.

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We are gearing up for breast cancer awareness month and our special Go Pink Project where you will hear inspiring stories about men and women from our community whose lives have been changed by breast cancer.? It is a story that my children and I know all too well.? Breast cancer changed our lives forever.? Ours is a story that that has left us with a passion to do everything we can to help draw attention to this disease and to do what we can to fight it.?

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In 2008, ?the children and I filmed an episode of ABC?s ?Supernanny?.? The show was about losing a loved one to breast cancer and how families deal with grief. ?Just days before filming began, at the very young age of 54, Nana died of breast cancer.? You can see the raw emotions ?of our grief if you see the show online or in reruns.? The tears, the overwhelming grief and sadness of losing her was so new to us as we began taping.? The last scene we taped was at the 2008 Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk where with the help from ABC?s Supernanny we were invited to be the guests of honor ?who cut the ribbon.? ?With the help from family, friends and even strangers who had read the story about Nana, we were able to ?form a team called Team Nana.? ?

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With the camera crews from the show there to film the event, we gathered up on the stage prior to cutting the ribbon so I could give a quick speech about how our lives had been touched by breast cancer. ?Then my shy and quiet daughter Moira, who was 9 years old at the time, wrote a song and got up on the stage and sang it in front of 600 people as a tribute to Nana.? ?As we stood there waiting to cut the ribbon for the walk to begin, I had a flashback to just a year before when we had come out to this same event for the very first time.?

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The first time we went to the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk was as a family with Nana in 2007.? We all went that warm Sunday afternoon because my oldest daughter Loughlin needed to get community service hours for school and it was such a beautiful day that staying inside was not an option.? On that day, breast cancer had not come into our lives. Little did we know that within just a few short days it would and our lives would never be the same.?

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This is the first in a series of blogs about one family?s journey with breast cancer and how it forever changed their lives.? To share your thoughts or stories of how breast cancer has touched your life email bnewsome@tallahassee.com.