| Advertisement |
|
|
It’s been a roller coaster year for the Moreno family as they’ve navigated the difficult and life-changing road of breast cancer.
In 2008, Lorena Moreno had a fatty tissue lump removed from her breast, and subsequent mammograms showed her to be fine. However, she began feeling more pain in both breasts during late 2011 and had a more intensive mammogram with an ultrasound conducted.
She was at the hairdresser April 16 when her doctor called her around 8 p.m. saying she’d like to speak with her in person.
“When they call you at night, you know it’s bad news,” Lorena says.
Lorena and her husband of 19 years, Joe, went to the doctor who delivered the halting news that Lorena had cancer.
Lorena sat dazed, thinking of her four teenage children, as the doctor continued talking.
“It was a real shock. Our world came crumbling down,” Joe says.
He noticed that Lorena wasn’t really listening and began thinking of the next step.
“How are we going to come home and tell the kids?” they both thought as they walked silently out of the office.
Their children, Carlos, 17, Diego, 16, and their 14-year-old twin daughters Alina and Anaiz, each took the news differently, but their parents reassured them “nothing is going to change as far as your support group, whether one of us or the two of us, we’ll be out there cheering you on, we’ll be there.”
One of the twins cried for days while the others were simply shocked.
“It was just sad. I mean, telling us that your mom has breast cancer is not a great thing,” Diego remembers.
Carlos was just finishing high school and planning to play football for a North Dakota college. With the news, he decided to change plans and stay here.
“I’d rather stay with mom than play football,” he says. “That doesn’t concern me. Having my mom is my life. I wouldn’t want to miss it.”
Read more about Lorena Moreno in the September/October 2012 edition of Valley Women Magazine in print or our online E-Edition