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Sister's fight with breast cancer leads to advocacy nonprofit
Focused on a Cure was born after mammogram at 37 found cancer
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Published: November 23, 2009
KANNAPOLIS - When Renda Ayscue's older sister, Rhonda, was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, the world changed.
Rhonda, a single mother, was about to discover the love one sister, friend and a community would show.
Renda, an assistant photographer at Irresistible Portraits in Kannapolis, enlisted owner Karen Goforth to help raise money for Rhonda's treatments.
Together Goforth and Ayscue have created a nonprofit, Focused on a Cure, which has helped spread the word about breast cancer.
Ayscue never knew how breast cancer could affect a family until it happened to her sister.
She didn't think Rhonda would be able to handle it, Ayscue said.
Ayscue was proven wrong.
"She (Rhonda) never complained. She taught me … what she's made of," Ayscue said.
Her sister had a lumpectomy followed by chemotherapy treatments.
"It (a mammogram) may be for five minutes, but it saved her life," Renda Ayscue said.
Rhonda went for a mammogram at age 37, three years earlier than doctors typically recommend.
She then had a biopsy and was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer.
"If she had waited until 40, she would not be alive," Renda Ayscue said.
Rhonda is cancer-free today.
"She's so much stronger," Goforth said.
Ayscue realized through her sister's fight against breast cancer they could be there for others.
She and Goforth started the nonprofit as a way to help Rhonda, but the more they became involved in the lives of the women they met along the way, "the more we felt it was something we had to do," Goforth said.
Ayscue and Goforth began taking pictures of the breast cancer survivors they met.
They also encouraged the women to tell their stories of survival.
The words and photographs of 15 women were put together in a traveling exhibit that has been featured at Carolina Mall, the Concord Library and several other locations throughout Cabarrus County.
Ayscue and Goforth both say seeing the exhibit made some people think twice about how they take care of themselves.
"We tried to portray each portrait to reflect their stories," Goforth said.
Many of the survivors were also the subject of a documentary video made by the organization.
Focused on a Cure has also created T-shirts, bottled water and stationery with their logo emblazoned in two shades of pink.
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