Shirley H. Brown; Women of Color Breast Cancer Support Group; Consumer Reviewer:

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in May of 1994 and had surgeries in June and July of 1994. And, as a result of that, my primary care physician at the time suggested that I get involved with the Women of Color Breast Cancer Support Project and she thought that I could help or be of some benefit to them with my background. And, so, I then found out about DoD. So, I applied to be a consumer reviewer and I found it so rewarding and that's how I got going even more so with research. But, in the meantime, I'd also been doing advocacy work going with Congress. I'm a team leader for Women of Color in southern California and I lead a group of women or whomever comes along for lobby day for NBCC to lobby for more money; the 150 million for the Breast Cancer Research Program. And, so then from that, I was offered the opportunity to come to Era of Hope. So, this is my first Era of Hope, but it's really made it come full circle and I see the whole picture now.

I was just impressed with being there with, you know, I said "Wow! Here I am, I'm a consumer, I don't have that much of a science background, and I'm here with PhD, MD researchers!" You know, people have dual degrees and this is their life. And, they were so knowledgeable but, I didn't feel intimidated because I had prepared, I had a review at the proposal, and they often gave me accolades and praise that they were surprised that I had such a handle. Now, I had to do a lot of looking up a lot of terms but, that's what I did.

The only way that we're going to get an end to breast cancer to eradicate it is with research, and I strongly feel that if it can happen for other diseases, it can happen for breast cancer. And, being at Era of Hope, I can say, this IS the Era of Hope. We hope this will be when we'll come back one year and they will have found something. Something's been discovered.