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Meet My Nana
- Sep 18, 2008 at 8:17 PM
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- Comments (1) Total Views (531) Everyone can see this journal post.
Her name was Lougenia Washington Stevenson.
She was born in 1917, in rural SC.
She was the oldest of 10 children, and helped raise her younger siblings.
She only had a 6th grade education.
She cleaned hospitals and houses for a living.
She was just shy of 5 feet tall and weighed about 100 pounds soaking wet.
She raised a son and a daughter.
She helped raise 4 grandchildren.
She lived long enough to see her first great grandchild.
She was a tiny little woman, wiry and wry.
She struck terror in the hearts of her grandchildren and made the best fried chicken.
She taught me to make giblet gravy but not biscuits. I still can't make biscuits.
She baked cakes and pies from scratch.
She was a breast cancer survivor. That's right-a survivor. She endured a double mastectomy that left her feeling robbed of her womanhood. Her doctor didn't do much in the way of reconstructive surgery so she was left with awful scars. She took rounds of tamoxifen to stave off recurrences. She, this tiny little woman, beat cancer. She never had a recurrence.
Breast cancer awareness means so many things to me. Awareness means sisterhood. It means women looking out for other women. Whether it's educating women about self screening and the signs of cancer or giving an chemo patient a hug and a shoulder to cry on, we must join together to save our lives.
Awareness means courage. It means knowing your risk and being proactive, even when it's scary. If you find a lump, you need to get it checked. Many women want to wait and pray that the lump goes away. We have to be brave.
Awareness means education. Know your risk, check your breasts, and encourage others to do the same. We cannot defeat what we do not understand. We have to raise money for research and find new ways of prevention, and most of all, a cure!
Tags: boobs, breast cancer awarness, cure, lump, money, remission, survivor, tumor
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What a warm and very touching sory eauty queen... I feel like I know your nana like she is mine.... Congrats to her for beating this thing...