​On 22 September, Tammy Musselwhite, President & Secretary, resigned from The Audacious Divas. Tammy's personality, vision and commitment to finding a cure for women’s cancers helped shape the Audacious Divas into the successful organization it is today. She will be greatly missed. Please join us in wishing her the best of luck and great success in her next endeavor.

Debbi, John, Kim, Anita

Personal note from Debbi:
Tammy and I began this venture together. It began as a dream over cocktails and grew into a reality larger than either of us anticipated or imagined, but it has not been easy on us. It has tested our physical boundaries. It is no easy feat to walk 60 miles in the cold and rain. It has strained our friendship. Working with friends is no easy feat either. But I know we’ve made a difference, and that is what we started out to do. I think I can safely say we’ve done something worth being very proud of.
​
Tammy, the Divas never would have happened without you and we’ll never be the same without you. I love you and hope this new adventure you are about to embark upon brings you much happiness.

Video by: Anita Maginniss
​Music: Changeless by Carbon Leaf

I've had the following article bookmarked for almost two months. I was waiting for June to share it. Why? 20 years ago, June 1995, I received my diagnosis of DCIS. DCIS is ductal carcinoma in situ, a pre-cancerous or non-invasive cancerous lesion of the breast. One website I recently visited states that some doctors don't even classify DCIS as breast cancer.

The reason I’m sharing this is I never got a second opinion, and I should have. Given what I know now, I may not have had to have gone through the treatments I did if I had sought out a second opinion. I try to keep in mind it was 20 years ago and we only knew a fraction of what we know now, but maybe if I had found a doctor that knew just a little more it would have been different.

This goes both ways. I’ve talked to several women over the years that were told by one doctor they would be dead within a year, but got a second opinion and are living well beyond that year.

Please, take the time to read this article. If you, or anyone you know, is diagnosed, please have them seek a second opinion or even a third. Thanks.

Rita Wilson Has Breast Cancer, Undergoes Double Mastectomy and Reconstructive Surgery

BY ELIZABETH LEONARD
04/14/2015 AT 08:30 AM EDT

Rita Wilson is sharing some difficult and very personal news: she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and has undergone a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. 

In an exclusive statement to PEOPLE, the actress, 58, reveals the diagnosis and how she feels "blessed" to have the love and support of her husband, Tom Hanks, friends, family and the doctors who saved her life. 

"I have taken a leave from the play Fish in the Dark to deal with a personal health issue," reveals Wilson, who will return to the Broadway play on May 5. "Last week, with my husband by my side, and with the love and support of family and friends, I underwent a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction for breast cancer after a diagnosis of invasive lobular carcinoma. I am recovering and most importantly, expected to make a full recovery. Why? Because I caught this early, have excellent doctors and because I got a second opinion. 

"I have had an underlying condition of LCIS, (lobular carcinoma in situ) which has been vigilantly monitored through yearly mammograms and breast MRIs. Recently, after two surgical breast biopsies, PLCIS (pleomorphic carcinoma in situ) was discovered. I mention this because there is much unknown about PLCIS and it is often found alongside DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ). I was relieved when the pathology showed no cancer. 

"However, a friend who had had breast cancer suggested I get a second opinion on my pathology and my gut told me that was the thing to do. A different pathologist found invasive lobular carcinoma. His diagnosis of cancer was confirmed by, yet, another pathologist. I share this to educate others that a second opinion is critical to your health. You have nothing to lose if both opinions match up for the good, and everything to gain if something that was missed is found, which does happen. Early diagnosis is key. 

"I feel blessed to have a loving, supportive husband, family, friends and doctors and that I am the beneficiary of advances in the field of breast cancer and reconstruction. I am getting better every day and look forward to renewed health. 

"I hope this will encourage others to get a second opinion and to trust their instincts if something doesn't 'feel' right." 

A friend alerted me to this powerful LA Times article by Laurie Becklund. Laurie lost her life at the beginning of February. She worked on this piece in the last months of her life. It brought out a wide array of emotions for me. Her thoughts touched on why I've always had such a difficult time with the title survivor. Deep down I've always felt it was more luck than fight that saw me through. 


This article is also a strong reminder of why we worked so hard to become a 501(c)(3). We wanted more control over where the funds we raised were donated. The Divas donate programs dedicated to the treatment and support of current patients and organizations that provide mammograms at reduced or no cost to patients. 


Please take a few moments to read the article below. Thank you. 

As I Lay Dying
By Laurie Becklund
February 20, 2015, 7:45 pm

I am dying, literally, at my home in Hollywood, of metastatic breast cancer, the only kind of breast cancer that kills. For six years I've known I was going to die. I just didn't know when.

Then, a couple of weeks before Christmas, a new, deadly diagnosis gave me a deadline. No doctor would promise me I'd make it to 2015.

Promise me, I told my friends and family, that you'll never say that I died after “fighting a courageous battle with breast cancer.” This tired, trite line dishonors the dead and the dying by suggesting that we, the victims, are responsible for our deaths or that the fight we were in was ever fair.

Promise me you'll never wear a pink ribbon in my name or drop a dollar into a bucket that goes to breast cancer “awareness” for “early detection for a cure,” the mantra of fund-raising juggernaut Susan G. Komen, which has propagated a distorted message about breast cancer and how to “cure” it.

I'm proof that early detection doesn't cure cancer. I had more than 20 mammograms, and none of them caught my disease. In fact, we now have significant studies showing that routine mammogram screening, which may result in misdiagnoses, unnecessary treatment and radiation overexposure, can harm more people than it helps.

In 1996, during a self-exam, I found a peanut-sized lump in one breast that turned out to be stage one breast cancer. I had the “best,” most common, kind of breast cancer, found it early, got a lumpectomy and short dose of radiation. Five years out, my doctor told me there was little chance of recurrence and said, “Have a great life!”

You can imagine my shock when, 13 years after my initial diagnosis, I was in gridlock on the Harbor Freeway and got a call from my doctor with the results of a PET scan ordered after routine blood labs. “Maybe you should pull over,” he said.

Half an hour later, in an elementary school parking lot, I learned the scans revealed stage four breast cancer in my bones, liver, lungs and brain: a death sentence with an average life expectancy of three years.

I demanded the truth, always, from my doctors. I was a reporter who needed facts to plan whatever life I had left. I would not live in denial. But I was too scared, too private to tell anyone except my husband, my daughter and three friends. My very cells suddenly became my most intimate secrets.

Who would ever sign another book contract with a dying woman? Or remember Laurie Becklund, valedictorian, Fulbright scholar, former Times staff writer who exposed the Salvadoran death squads and helped The Times win a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 1992 L.A. riots? More important, and more honest, who would ever again look at me just as Laurie?


It took me more than two years to summon the courage to meet others like me, at a Metastatic Breast Cancer Network conference. When I arrived there were no pink ribbons in sight, except for a single lapel pin that had been turned upside down like a noose.

I introduced myself to the group's president and vice president, who were comparing their hands, red and shiny from the side effects of various chemo treatments. Metaphorically, I had been both hiding my identity and fearing I'd lose it. It wasn't until that day that I learned some people literally lose theirs, via their fingerprints.

The women at the conference greeted me with questions. They were shocked to meet someone whose cancer had metastasized to all four possible sites breast cancer can go. How was I even alive? They had set up lunch tables labeled “Brain,” “Bones,” “Lungs” and “Liver.” I told myself, at least I could table-hop.

Later that day, in one of the most powerful rituals I have ever seen, the group's president asked all of us to stand, then sit back down when she reached the number of years since our diagnosis. At two years, most had to sit down. When she reached seven, no one I could see was still standing.

Looking back, I realize that I've been trying to report my way out of this disease. I've read so many books; researched hundreds of clinical trials; done my best to learn the complicated language of cancer and microbiology; attended conferences in Indiana, Florida, Mexico and Portugal. I joined online forums. I signed on with the user name “WontDieofIgnorance.” Despite it all, I fear that is exactly what is going to happen. I might as well have been playing Chutes and Ladders, a childhood board game whose outcome is based on rolls of the dice.

The medical establishment tells me I have “failed” a number of therapies. That's not right: The establishment and its therapies have failed me. The system we live in as metastatic breast cancer patients is simply not designed to deal with the cycle we are living and dying in. The estimated 40,000 women (and a few men) who die annually can't wait years for FDA-approved, “gold standard” clinical trials. We're dying now.

Another quarter-million Americans are estimated to be waiting in the wings. I say “estimated” because no one is required to report a metastatic diagnosis. Death certificates normally report symptoms such as “respiratory failure,” not the actual disease. We are literally uncounted.

We now know that breast cancer is not one disease. What works for one person might not for another: There is no one “cure.” We are each, in effect, one-person clinical trials. Yet the knowledge generated from those trials will die with us because there is no comprehensive database of metastatic breast cancer patients, their characteristics and what treatments did and didn't help them.

In the Big Data-era, this void is criminal. Consider what Wall Street does. Even the tiniest companies can see how much stock they sell, compare themselves to cohorts, review history, predict trends. Why can't we create such a database for cancer patients, so we can all learn from patient experiences and make more educated decisions on what treatments will extend and improve lives?

The most powerful organization in the breast cancer universe, Susan G. Komen , has raised $2.5 billion over the last 20 years, much more than many corporations will ever earn. Yet Komen channels only a fraction of those funds into research or systems to help those who are already seriously sick. Most of that money continues to go to a breast cancer “awareness” campaign that is now painfully out of date.

We need people — patients, doctors, scientists, politicians, investors, families — to make a fresh start. We must create a new system of data collection and an open, online, broad-range database about patient histories that will provide information invaluable to those who've been given a death sentence. Patients as well as doctors must contribute.

It will come too late for me. But it is possible to end the game: Patients shouldn't have to climb up ladders and fall down chutes.

I'm known to most people as Deb, but some refer to me as The Celtic Pink Ribbon lady. I'm a Girly Girl. I've been told I'm an old soul. Family and friends are VERY important to me. I love animals. At heart I'm very old fashioned. 

I live and work in Northern Virginia, By day I'm an executive assistant. I'm lucky to be one of those people that actually loves their job. In addition to my day job, my Audacious Diva & Celtic Pink Ribbon duties, I also run a professional development page for administrative assistants on Facebook called Audacious Admin.

I love kids, but I don't have and don't want any. I got married for the first time in 2014. I have two of the best fur-babies in the world, Payton & Brodie. I'm addicted to coffee and shoes. Live music is like a drug to me. I'm very fortunate to call many members of my favorite bands my friends. I also enjoy theatre, dancing, fashion, good food and laughing. I try my best to live in the moment and enjoy the little things. 

I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world because of my family and friends.

I maintain a blog on the Celtic Pink Ribbon website and most of my posts are there, but I'm going to try to put something up here at least once a month on Diva happenings.

Some of my favorite quotes:
"My friends are my estate." ~ E. Dickenson
"But I believe in music... The way that some people believe in fairy tales." ~ August Rush
"I'm only as strong as the cocktails I drink, the hairspray I use and the girlfriends I have." ~Unknown