Paula's Story

A Plea From Her Daughter

We’ve all read articles or seen programs on TV about the devastating effects of cancer on a person, but until you’ve actually witnessed a family member suffer from cancer, you can’t ever truly understand just how devastating the disease truly is. There is simply nothing that can prepare you. Quite blatantly, it’s unfathomable. Even in spite of the staggering statistics on the number of lives that are affected and taken by cancer each year, many people live in the, “That’s really sad, but that will never happen to my family or me” mentality.

We know that mentality all too well because that’s how we thought. We never could have imagined that cancer would affect our family. We never expected to have watched our mother suffer the incredibly intense pain she did and deteriorate in the horrifically dramatic fashion we witnessed. And we never could have dreamed she would have been stolen away from us and we’d be left to face our lives without her. But that is exactly what became our reality.

Like our father, we didn’t want what our mother went through to be in vain. That’s what the Delivering Cures for Cancer Foundation is all about. It is our deepest hope that the information, research, and treatment options available through the Foundation will help prevent others from experiencing what she did. Our goal is that this organization will make a change – a real change – to cancer treatment that will not only eliminate the barbaric process cancer patients currently have to endure, but save their lives, and, in effect, preserve their families.

Change and change for the better. That’s what we are promoting. Change to the treatments that are available to cancer patients — treatments that will target solely cancer cells and not fill their bodies with toxins; treatments that will not cause them to lose their hair; treatments that will not devastate their already weakened bodies even more. But we need your help to continue our research so that these treatments can be made available to people who desperately need them. Maybe that person is your friend. Maybe that person is a family member. Maybe that person is your mother. Please help us spread this message for her sake.

Sincerely,

Janine M. Shore
CEO

Paula could’ve been your mom. Your sister. Your best friend.

After graduating Temple, she spent her life helping others—inner-city kids, local orgs, her two daughters. She was sharp, honest, and the kind of woman who made you stand up straighter just by entering the room.

Then came 2005. Stage 4 lung cancer. No warning. No mercy.

Her family tried everything. Nothing worked. A few brutal months later, Paula was gone.

Even in pain, her thoughts were of others. Her dying wish? That no one else would have to suffer like she did.

You can help make that happen. Let’s cure this thing—for Paula, and for everyone still fighting.