http://ozarkspub.vo.llnwd.net/o37/KSMU/audio/mp3/marybethor_5734.mp3
Michele Skalicky talks with Mary Beth O'Reilly about what courage means.
Courage comes in many different forms. For some, it may be the decision to enter a burning building to save a life. For others, it’s the decision to not give up—to keep going despite adversity.Mary Beth O’Reilly’s courage lies in the latter. Fourteen years ago she had just returned from a trip to the Grand Canyon with her family to find a message that she needed to retake her mammogram…
"I had nothing but fibercystic lumps, so there was no way to do a decent self-breast exam, so I did have a mammogram and they came in and said, 'who's your surgeon?'"
Further tests showed she had four tumors rather than just the one that had previously been diagnosed.Her fight against breast cancer led to an opportunity in the late 90s to help others with the same disease…
"I had a young friend that somebody sent to be to mentor. She was 28, and she had a very serious form of breast cancer, was in treatment for three years, and she died at 31, and I decided that we needed to educate young women, and it was kind of serendipitis how it started at this time. I made a donation on her behalf and some other friends did, and her surgeon matched it, and the media got ahold of it, and people started sending me checks."
That was the beginning of the Breast Cancer Foundation of the Ozarks, which offers help and hope to families impacted by breast cancer. Patients can find help in the form of short-term financial assistance, assistance for their children, free screening mammograms for uninsured and underinsured, survivor support groups and mentoring, a learning library, lymphodema garments and educational programs.The BCFO is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and has provided nearly 1.2 million-dollars in services to breast cancer patients.O’Reilly and her husband Charlie have long given their time and money to the Springfield community and this was just one more way she saw that she could make a difference—but this time she drew on the courage she’d gained from her fight with breast cancer…
"Part of courage is seeing the need and being a little selfless in knowing that others may have even a greater need than you do and reaching out. You know, courage is just getting through it. Courage is helping others get through it. A lot of times we do a lot of mentoring as well as providing financial assistance, and if I have courage then I can help transmit that to others."
She’s since learned that she has lung cancer—completely unrelated to the breast cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy. The diagnosis came in May. And she says her definition of courage has changed since then…
"With my first round of breast cancer I would say that courage was a lot more fighting, a lot more doing alternative things, being as normal as possible in both instances, of cancer, but this last time it's more--I think I'm more at peace, which is a funny thing to say, but I don't work as hard at it. I'm doing my treatment and had surgery, but I'm looking more toward the spiritual this time. I did use that last time but I took everything--I was very assertive and aggressive in every mode and this time my courage is more about trying to handle it peacefully."
O’Reilly credits her family—her husband, three sons and six grandchildren—and many friends for helping her have the courage to fight her illness.She says courage comes with the support of those around you and with knowledge. She encourages everyone to be a participant in their healthcare and to be their own best advocate. But ultimately, according to O’Reilly, courage is inside waiting to be tapped when needed…
"I think that you draw courage from your inner strength through many of lifes experiences, too. I think they're all roadmarks for being able to develop courage. It's not just something that develops instantaneously. I think it's a lifelong measure of how you have assessed what your actions are and what the production is of your actions, what the resolution is, whether it's successful or not."
She encourages everyone to live every moment of every day and to find something good in even the most difficult of days. She prefers to focus on today—not on what could happen in the future—she says it’s not very productive to dwell on “what if.”This story is available on the web at ksmu.org. For KSMU and the Sense of Community Series, I’m Michele Skalicky.