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Last week I heard an interview on the radio that was so moving, I sat in my car – in my driveway – for 30 minutes so I wouldn’t miss a minute. NPR’s Michel Norris was speaking with Nancy Brinker, and it was mesmerizing to hear her story. For most people, the name Nancy Brinker won’t ring a bell, even though she has had a tremendously positive impact on the lives of millions of women.

In 1982, Nancy founded the famously pink Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Susan was Nancy’s only sister; she died of breast cancer in 1980 at the age of 36. But before Susan died, Nancy promised her that she would “do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever.”  Today, Susan G. Komen has given nearly $2 billion to cancer research and prevention, and is one of the leading grassroots groups of cancer survivors and philanthropists.

As I listened to Nancy, I wondered: How must it feel to have watched your sister suffer with breast cancer, while you yourself could do nothing to ease her pain or change her outcome? How must it feel to have made that promise, and then to actually succeed beyond your wildest dreams?

Over the years, Nancy has been touched by millions of stories of sisters, mothers, daughters, teachers, best friends – women who are incredibly grateful for her dedication. And yet, Nancy still has a hole in her heart, left by the much-too-early death of her childhood confidante, her best friend, the woman she thought she’d grow old with, babysitting each other’s kids. While many may believe that Nancy’s life has been defined by breast cancer, after hearing her story, it seems to me that her life was re-ignited as she has become one of cancer’s strongest and most active enemies.

And she shows no signs of stopping.

On the day of the interview, Nancy was discussing her inspiring book, the New York Times bestseller, Promise Me: How a Sister's Love Launched the Global Movement to End Breast Cancer. And it occurred to me, that while I have never had breast cancer, I have on my bookshelf half a dozen wonderful books on the subject – Nancy’s being just one.

I didn’t read the books because of my several small scares – a benign lump removed in my left breast, calcification extracted from my right breast, tissue that migrated from my breast to my underarm that is often so painful I cannot wear a short-sleeved shirt. I read the books because I have dear friends who are survivors; whose journeys I followed and supported and prayed for. But breast cancer does not run in my family, and I have to admit, for this reason, I am often cavalier about my monthly self-exams.

Even last week, as my yearly mammogram required me to come back for a diagnostic one; even when a sonogram showed a suspicious area on my right breast – I refused to entertain the thought that I will have to go any further that the requested needle biopsy. I believe it is simply scar tissue from that extraction years ago. And to be honest, there is a part of me that doesn’t want anyone messing around in my boobs again.

Leave well enough alone, a part of me cries. Don’t go pushing around those cells. I want to save my ta-tas my own way. I know it doesn’t make sense. I know it’s not proactive. I know I’m being short-sighted.

But I have often thought if I had the choice to go through rounds of chemo or to live my last year(s) without that poisonous invasion, I would choose the latter. I’ve also had the opposite thought just as often -- that I would do anything, try anything, inject anything to survive and see my son graduate high school and college… fall in love and be loved … have children whom I could babysit and spoil.

I don’t ever want to have to actually make that choice. Instead, I envision a path where it doesn’t exist. So yes, I will most likely get the biopsy. And I will proactively pray and visualize a benign result.

I will take these baby steps to baby my breasts, because I have seen the cancer invasion in women I love. That’s why my bookshelf carries the writers and fighters of this disease. Like the book by my friend Stacy Shelton, author of, Me, the Crazy Woman and Breast Cancer. Stacy tells it like it is, and it isn't necessarily pretty. I interviewed Stacy on my old radio program, and let me tell you – she is a fighter, a fiercely protective mother and a dedicated activist, supporter and friend. She probably is not even aware of how deeply her story and her positive energy have affected my life, but my prayers include her every day.

I also love the book Lift by Kelly Corrigan. This is a book I’ve given to friends and cancer survivors because of Kelly’s uplifting storytelling, her self-revealing cancer journey, and her commitment to her family – especially her daughters – to fight the disease and never let a day go by without telling those she cares about how much she loves them.

There’s no sugar-coating in these books by Nancy, Stacey and Kelly or in the stories of my friends Beth, Barbara Donna, S.J., my Aunt Ruth, Rebecca and her dear friend Claudia, my mom, and so many ... too many ... others. No self-pity, either. These are some of the strongest and most amazing women I know. And the thing is, they wouldn’t even think they were particularly astounding. They don’t define themselves by their cancer. And to me, that is their most astounding quality of all.

No matter what cancer CAN do, these women – courageous, graceful, determined – recognize what cancer CANNOT do. I read it on a plaque recently, and although no one knows who actually wrote it, I bet it was a strong, supportive, compassionate woman. This is what it says:

Cancer is so limited. Cancer cannot cripple love, or shatter hope, or corrode faith, or destroy peace, or kill friendship, or suppress memories, or silence courage, or invade the soul, or steal eternal life, or conquer the human spirit.

As my friend Elizabeth might say, that is one bitch-slap to cancer. 

Ginger is a 20-year veteran corporate writer in Atlanta, and most recently, the former national web editor at skirt!, www.skirt.com. She is a regular blogger for skirt.com and Huffington Post’s divorce vertical (www.huffingtonpost.com/divorce). But her favorite "job" is as the mother of her 16-year-old son, who often stars in her stories  (sometimes against his will!). Ginger is the author of the hilarious and helpful book, “Back On Top: Fearless Dating After Divorce.” She has been featured in several female-centric media and appeared on dozens of local and national TV and radio shows, including as host of Book Talk with Ginger in Atlanta, Georgia. 

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