May 10, 2006 4:22 pm US/Eastern
Sisters For The Cure
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ―
Sunday's "Race For The Cure" serves as a reminder that one of out of every eight women will get breast cancer. African American women run a greater risk of dying from this disease. One family who suffered a loss and is now fighting back.
16-year-old Andrew Friend watched his Aunt Noreen die from breast cancer.
"It's like every time I look at one of her pictures, I start to get teary-eyed, because I really miss her," he said.
Roberta James, Noreen's sister and Andrew's mom, remembered her sister's feelings.
"She said, 'I hate this disease. I hate what it's done to me,'" James said.
Noreen died on James' 38th birthday, but instead of falling apart James pulled herself and her family together.
"Your first mammogram is what they call a base line," she said.
James, a high school math teacher, now gives some breast cancer awareness classes to students at Germantown High School in Philadelphia.
James' face has been used on posters for "Sisters For The Cure". The group promotes awareness in the African American community.
If there is one message James knows her sister would want others to know, it is to start teaching them while they're young.
"Because having breast cancer does not mean that you're going to die," she said.
James stresses getting tested for breast cancer because the sooner the cancer is caught, the sooner it can be treated.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
