When I turned 39 I knew my life would change drastically, it was all planned out. I returned home after a six month deployment, faced a much needed hysterectomy due to endometriosis, shared my retirement with my family, started to attend a supportive and loving church, found a job at an amazing library, and watched my son complete first grade. This was enough change for me and I settled into it all with grace and looked forward to the second half of my life. I turned 40 in February and received a reminder message from my insurance company that I should have my first mammogram soon. Months later I made a routine check-up appointment and thought to mention it to my doctor. I was scheduled for the end of May and had to change my appointment due to a family emergency out of state. On June 5th, 2014 I had my first mammogram. I was called and asked to come back for more films, an ultrasound, then a surgical consult, a biopsy during an ultrasound, and on July 1st my husband and I received the results, Stage 1 Invasive Ductal Cancer. My life stopped but the world did not. I felt interrupted, this isn’t on the schedule or part of the plan. But it is, here and now I bare the lumpectomy scar and a breast that will never be the same, I will never be the same. I served as an Airman in the United States Air Force for over twenty years and now I have joined an elite group that fights breast cancer every day. So the second half of my life has begun with more focus, more fight, more life than I could have ever imagined.

Angela Simmons-Jones
Perry, GA