My name is Charlotte, I am 50 years young. I have been married to my loving husband and best friend Joe for 33 years. We have a daughter, Melissa. I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in April 2008. I was devastated. Life was so good and I loved everything about my life. My daughter, was getting married in May and we absolutely adored our future son in law. This is something I had dreamt about and hoped for all my life. After I got over the initial shock I decided fight this thing with all my might. I was not going to let this control my life but I was going to remain in control. My tumor was quite large and I had some lymph nodes test positive also but with my wonderful team of doctors and my family by my side we chose what we felt would be the best treatment plan for me. I made the decision along with the standard treatment that I would take part in a Clinical Trial so that I may possibly help someone in the future facing this journey. My treatment plan called for chemo first to try and shrink the tumor followed by surgery and then radiation. After around 3 treatments I noticed that my tumor had began to shrink. I had my surgery on November 4th. When my surgeon went in she was amazed to no longer find any traces of the cancer in my lymph nodes and my tumor was no longer a tumor but a few scattered cells and almost too small to measure!! She had the biggest smile when she asked me if I knew what this meant. She said "this is big, really big" and that I had literally made medical history. Wow, image that me?

Charlotte Gomes
Salinas, CA