Sandy H - Patient Advocate

[Joe]

Although most of us are familiar with Sandy's activities on this website, there is another side of Sandy that few knew about.

She was an active advocate for IBC breast cancer and performed considerable phone support for newly diagnosed patients in New England. Sandy was active not only with the HER2 Support Group but with several IBC internet groups and several local bc support groups.

We were proud to invite Sandy to accompany us to the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in 2004, 2005 and 2006. I will always remember Sandy's need to hurry home to share the knowledge gained at SABCS with her oncologist and local support groups. Living in rural Maine, meant that she sometimes spent 12 hours traveling each way to San Antonio. Sandy absorbed all of the information that was presented.

What I will always remember about Sandy was that she was one of the last of the "old fashioned" proper ladies of the past, homespun with traditional values She was extremely personable but also very humble. We first emailed Sandy in 2004 requesting her to call Christine as we had something important to discuss with her. She did return our call and feared that she had somehow done something improper on our website, otherwise why would "The Christine" ask her to call. In reality we were inviting her to attend San Antonio with us.

Sandy will always be with us at each meeting and each symposium that we attend. We will also be increasing out outreach programs to give everyone who wishes the opportunity to be a true patient advocate.

Warmest Regards
and
Hugs

Christine and Joe