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Oct 12, 2009 6:27 pm US/Eastern
Key to the Cure A Personal Event For One Organizer
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
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Saks is selling a Key to the Cure t-shirt this year for $40. Eighty percent of the proceeds from each shirt will be donated to The University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
CBS News
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and nearly everybody knows somebody affected by the disease.
CBS4 Anchor Shannon Hori has a friend whose fight with the cancer recently became personal. Ten years ago, Deborah Slack worked hard raising money and awareness for breast cancer. As the General Manager of Saks Fifth Avenue at Bal Harbour, she's put on the Key to the Cure every year.
But Deborah never imagined she would get her own devastating call. No one in Deborah's family had breast cancer, and she lives a healthy lifestyle. She was shocked.
"I walk around with the cell phone. I took the call and the man said, 'Hello, this is Dr. whatever. Congratulations, you have cancer.' I was like, 'what did he say, what?'" Deborah was completely unprepared. "There was not an indicator. Just happened to go to doctor and get mammogram and it saved my life."
Shortly after the Key to the Cure event October 2008, Deborah went for her annual mammogram. She didn't feel a lump, but the X-Ray showed little white flakes: very tiny specks of cancer, the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack.
Thanks to the mammogram, Deborah caught the cancer early. She didn't need chemotherapy or radiation, though she followed her doctor's advice and underwent a double mastectomy.
For the first time, she took three months off of work and focused on her 17-year-old son and her health. She's now cancer-free and back to raising money for cancer research; now, the fight is personal.
"Every day I wake up and am grateful for being alive. People take that for granted. It's not something to be taken for granted."
Saks is selling a Key to the Cure t-shirt this year for $40. Eighty percent of the proceeds from each shirt will be donated to The University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The Key to the Cure event is being held Thursday and will feature speakers talking about importance of early detection.
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