Why the Melissa Project? I'm not one to sit around and let the world go on around me... I've got to do something.
About a year ago, a girl friend of mine from college called me. We chat every few months and rarely see each other as happens when people move and get married, as I did, and we loose track of some people… but last summer Melissa called me and informed me that she had been battling breast cancer. I nearly dropped my cell phone as I stood in Target (one remembers everything when receiving such a call) I held my baby daughter in my arms, and grabbed a piece of paper from my mother to get a number to call her back on. I was suddenly shuffling thoughts of sadness, despair, and my boys (4 and 2 at the time of this phone call), and in a flash I had guilt and concern and other streams of emotion… what was I supposed to say… then I’m listening intently while Melissa tells me she elected to have a mastectomy and is now undergoing chemotherapy. I want to help but being miles away, what can I do but listen?
When I returned home, I called Melissa and chatted a little while, just listening and letting her tell me what she wanted to tell me. She had conducted a self-breast exam and found something unusual, got it checked out to find that it was indeed cancerous. I don’t know much more than that, but it made me seek information and become an advocate for early detection and educating young women, old women, all women, and the men, family and friends of all women to become aware and supportive of ALL WOMEN. I sensed loneliness in my friends voice… and that makes me want to do more.
