Taking Control

After recovering from her last lumpectomy in July 2006, René was stunned by what she saw—her left breast was about a half cup size smaller than her right. "I cried. It was sad, because I felt like I'm a young woman and I worked hard to keep my figure and my shape, and I didn't want to feel like I was deformed," she says.

Her relief at being assured that she was cancer-free after each of her four biopsies soon evaporated into another year of worry. "I lived with this fear that the other shoe was going to drop after every mammogram and every biopsy," she says.