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“Breast Cancer is not a group you choose whether you are a member or not — you just are.”

—Sue Kilburn, survivor

By Richard Sayer

meadville tribune

A woman rides in the passenger seat of a car heading south down Interstate 79 in the summer of 2005 — her bald head leaning back on the seat as her eyes look out in the direction of the road — her husband at the wheel.

She sighs!

“I don’t want to do this!”

Her eyes may have been on the road, but she wasn’t looking at it really. Her thoughts were swirling — her children, her grandchildren, her mom who died of Alzheimer’s, her dad of cancer, her dogs, her husband, Ron, beside her — always there. The thoughts flashed by her so rapidly she barely could remember them when asked what she was thinking, but every thought was important. She scrunched herself up in a favorite flannel sheet she calls a sheet blanket and swears it’s the greatest thing ever invented. She closes her eyes.

A few miles later an arm emerges out from the blanket and reaches up to Ron’s shoulder. Turning toward him, she smiles as her eyes stay peeled to him. He is her rock.

Four years ago, at age 53, this ride down the highway to Pittsburgh was a reoccurring trip for Sue Kilburn of Meadville. She had breast cancer.

“It’s not something you think about, dwell on, you just do what you have to,” Sue said.