Like Maria J. Aragon of Colorado.

With a healthy family consisting of 3 children and her husband and no family history of breast cancer, she was diagnosed with ductal in situ breast cancer in July of 1993, and had a lumpectomy and endured months of radiation. Maria also underwent many forms of alternative treatments such as vitamins & supplements, Chinese herbs, massage, support groups, volunteering, and self-education on the topic. Maria feels that the following quote from Martha Graham conveys the message of life; it reads: "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost." Maria feels that "when one is confronted with cancer, one looks one's mortality square in the face. It takes courage, following the initial panic, to decide to fight cancer, to learn all there is about it, to recognize the opportunity one has been given to live life more consciously, fully and creatively." Through her experience and challenges, Maria has grown in her spiritual side of life, and lives by the words of Anais Nin: "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

Photographed by Stephen Collector

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