{"id":32241,"date":"2023-10-23T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=32241"},"modified":"2023-10-24T06:40:45","modified_gmt":"2023-10-24T06:40:45","slug":"surviving-and-striving-after-breast-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=32241","title":{"rendered":"Surviving and striving after breast cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Charmaine Mullin and Guy Cowden were among several Veterans who shared their personal stories of hope and survival at a Breast Cancer Awareness event held at Houston VA on<sup> <\/sup>Oct. 10. VA staff and Veterans from all eras gathered to celebrate cancer survivors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mullin is an Army Veteran in the middle of the fight for her life. Diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2022, she is undergoing treatment at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.va.gov\/houston-health-care\/\">Houston VA<\/a>. \u201cEvery day I get up, thank God and push through. Surviving and striving is my motto,\u201d she shared.<\/p>\n<p>Navy Veteran Cowden was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2020. He was initially taken aback by the diagnosis, but now counts his blessings: \u201cBefore my diagnosis, I had never known another man who had breast cancer. Now I start each day with gratitude and am thankful that I have another day to try and make the world a better place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/news.va.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2023\/10\/Cowden_r1.jpg\"><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Navy Veteran Guy Cowden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u201cWe are with them every step of the way.\u201d<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cCancer treatment is a journey, and at VA we are committed to helping and supporting our Veterans from diagnosis through treatment and on to surveillance,\u201d said Dr. Christy Chai, an Air Force Veteran and assistant chief of Surgery at Houston VA. \u201cWe put the Veteran in the driver\u2019s seat of their own cancer journey, but we are there with them every step of the way. We are all in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/news.va.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2023\/10\/Charmaine-Mullins_r1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"175\" height=\"216\" src=\"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Charmaine-Mullins_r1.jpg\" alt=\"Female Veteran breast cancer survivor\" class=\"wp-image-125063\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Army Veteran Charmaine Mullin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Cutting her waist-length dreadlocks and dying her hair was one of the first things Mullin did to take control of her own cancer fight.\u00a0 \u201cMy hair was my crown and glory, but I knew I had to buckle up for this fight.\u00a0I come to VA every week, and the chemo nurses have been phenomenal. They really care about patients and keep our spirits high,\u201d Mullin said.<\/p>\n<p>Educating other men about the risks of breast cancer is important to Cowden. \u201cMy mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and the doctor immediately warned my sister about an increased risk of getting breast cancer. Sadly, that same message wasn\u2019t relayed to her sons.\u00a0I even had a hard time finding a breast cancer support group for men.\u00a0Getting the word out to male Veterans is critical,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWomen Veterans are our fastest growing population of Veterans in Houston,\u201d Chai added. \u201cStatistically, women Veterans are diagnosed with cancer at a higher rate than non-Veterans.\u00a0 We take great pride in offering state-of-the-art cancer care to each and every Veteran who needs it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Charmaine Mullin and Guy Cowden were among several Veterans who shared their personal stories of hope and survival at a Breast Cancer Awareness event held at Houston VA on Oct. 10. VA staff and Veterans from all eras gathered to celebrate cancer survivors.\u00a0 Mullin is an Army Veteran in the middle of the fight for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[747,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breast-cancer-awareness","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32241"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32246,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32241\/revisions\/32246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}