For 17 years, Independent Sales Director Jackie Radichel took hormone replacement Therapy (HRT) to help her mood and relieve menopausal symptoms. Later, she learned this therapy put her at greater risk to develop breast cancer.

“My surgeon asked me if I would have still taken HRT even if I knew I would get breast cancer,” Jackie says. “My answer was unequivocally yes! The stability of my moods and temperament for those 17 years while raising our children outweighed the eventual need for cancer surgery.

“We all face ‘something’ in life. We each choose whether it will strengthen us or overcome us,” she says.

Jackie’s doctor found the cancer through a routine mammogram in 2002. She went through eight weeks of radiation and is now cancer-free.

Along her cancer journey, Jackie found special support in her sister-in-law, Independent Beauty Consultant Ann Radichel, who had battled breast cancer just one year earlier.

During Ann’s and Jackie’s cancer, each found comfort and encouragement from their family members and their Mary Kay unit, some of which are the same.

Jackie’s unit meetings included Ann and her daughters Annette and Ellen along with Jackie’s daughter, Tina, and her daughter-in-law, Leigh.

“Through our experiences with Mary Kay and cancer, we had many opportunities to bond and share,” Jackie says.

Even though Jackie and Ann are sisters-in-law, their family ties through their husbands didn’t make them close. The bond came through Mary Kay, Ann says.

“I always thought Jackie was better than me,” Ann says. “Through Mary Kay, I gained self-confidence and began to believe that I had as much value as Jackie or anyone else.

“We’re sisters in every sense of the word now,” Ann says. “We cry together, and I can tell her anything. Mary Kay has done that.”

Ann became an Independent Beauty Consultant just one year before she was diagnosed with cancer. While she didn’t work her business during that time, she continued to attend meetings for support.

“I attended meetings with no hair,” she remembers. “I lost all my eyelashes and eyebrows too. Once I completed chemotherapy, my Mary Kay sisters helped me create a new look with color products.”

While Jackie and Ann are cancer-free right now, Ann’s daughter, Independent Beauty Consultant Ellen Bergstrom, is not so fortunate. Ellen is now in radiation treatment for her second bout of breast cancer in the last 12 months.

“Ellen is such an inspiration to us all,” Jackie says. “She’s an adoptee in my unit, but she gave us our name: Silver Lining.”

Ellen amazes her friends and family as she goes through cancer treatments, continues to teach part time at a Christian day school and takes care of her 10-year-old son, who is severely autistic. In addition, Ellen and her husband both live with cerebral palsy.

Ann and her daughters will undergo genetic testing and counseling this year to see if there are any preventive measures they can take for the future.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to this family.