Photo: City of Hope / Courtesy
María Flores had barely 33 years in the 2008 when she started to feel very tired. He visited his doctor who did tests and found nothing strange.
Weeks passed and Flores, who worked as a legal assistant and Office manager, he knew something was wrong with his health. One day while she was getting ready to attend a meal with family members, she noticed a ball the size of a golf ball in her right breast.
“At the moment when I felt it, it was something terrifying but I didn’t want to say anything until I had a result,” recalled the Mexican American. “But something inside me already knew it was going to be because an aunt to the 34 years they detected the ball in her breast. ”
Upon further medical tests, Flores was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, an aggressive form of cancer. This means that her disease lacked the receptors and proteins that current breast cancer drugs target.
Because his cancer was very strange, the only thing he had left to try were the clinical trials to which he agreed without hesitation.
Eventually she underwent preventative surgeries, removing her unaffected breast and then her ovaries. She knew that this was one of the most important decisions of her life since despite being married it would prevent her from being a mother.
“I decided to remove both ovaries because from my dad my aunts had ovarian cancer, so for me it was very important to do so in order to be longer, ”Flores said. “At that time I didn’t know if I wanted to have children, but the moment they tell you that you have cancer, many times that option is taken away from you.”
Flores said that making the decision to have her ovaries removed was extremely important and she had the full support of her husband and family. However, she stressed that not all women who go through a similar situation can accept it.
Supporting other cancer patients
With his experience and his desire to to live Flores, at his 46 years, has dedicated himself to educating and Counseling newly diagnosed cancer patients as a member of the City of Hope Patient and Family Advisory Council.
City of Hope is a world-renowned cancer research and treatment center that provides compassionate, lifesaving therapies. The cancer survivor also helps raise funds for innovative cancer research and cutting-edge treatments.
She has participated in trials clinical trials to help develop new cancer therapies. “Now I see the commercials on television for some of the drugs [experimentales] that I received,” said Flores.
Thanks to her hard work and humanitarian work, Flores was chosen to be one of nine participants in the float “Garden of Hopes and Dreams”, of City of Hope, this January 1st of 2022 in the Rose Parade.
All participants — three of them Latino, including Flores — will share stories of unwavering hope and perseverance. Together with health professionals who will travel in the float or walk with their cancer patients, whose strength, determination and positive attitude benefited them during their fight against cancer.
The float of 50 feet long and nearly 17 feet tall , built by Phoenix Decorating Company, will feature animated butterflies, symbols of hope and transformation. Fantasy mushrooms will mark rebirth after a chaotic time; a metaphor for the sustained battle that patients and their healthcare teams wage against cancer, as well as a respectful reverence for the expected eventual end of the pandemic.
City of Hope stressed that the covid – 19 created an additional obstacle to treating patients, but they and health professionals continued an uninterrupted fight against cancer.
Many of the patients chose to share their days of his fight against the disease so that others diagnosed with a similar disease do not feel alone.
Flores said that one of the councils What he cannot stop sharing with his own and strangers is that if they feel something strange about their health, they should talk about it with family or friends to seek support.
Enter the answer they are looking for, they can go to cityofhope.org/español and there they can find much more information because the worst thing you can do is feel something and not take action, ”Flores stressed.