A woman's breast cancer story usually doesn't begin before she is diagnosed with breast cancer-but Sue Richards' story does. Her journey began when Richards, a longtime resident of Trussville, retired after 20 years of working in medical billing and management. Accustomed to staying busy, she needed something worthwhile to fill her time.
"A friend who volunteered with UAB Breast Health Center's Angel Squad program invited me to come down and see what it was all about," she said. "So I did."
What she found was a group of caring pink-clad women who provide hope, comfort, and compassion to new breast cancer patients, their families, and their caregivers. On the day each patient receives her treatment plan, an Angel stops by to offer information, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, a hug, a snack, or whatever else the patient needs on one of the toughest days of her life.
Richards liked what she heard and signed up to serve in the Angel Squad in November 2009. Just a few months later in February 2010, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and everything changed. She was no longer seeing the uncertainties and fears of a breast cancer diagnosis through someone else's eyes-she was living them.
But, Richards said, "God had put me at UAB, exactly where I needed to be. Being there had nothing to do with me retiring. It was Him preparing me for what I was about to face."
Though she was not allowed to serve with the Angel Squad during the year she underwent treatment, Richards knew she would return. She was determined that her journey with breast cancer would not be without purpose as she intended to use her experience to benefit others.
So, after enduring eight months of infusions, a lumpectomy, the removal of 14 lymph nodes (all negative), and a series of radiation treatments, she again reported for duty with the Angel Squad.
But the way Richards related to the breast cancer patients she visited had dramatically changed.
"Before I had breast cancer, I didn't really know what to say or what not to say to the patients," she said. "But after you've been through it, it's different. I encourage them to ask questions and tell them my story-but only my story because every patient is different-and that's what gives some people hope. They see me kicking around 14 years after I was diagnosed and think, 'Well, she did it. Maybe I can do it, too.'"
During her time on the Angel Squad, Richards has met patients ranging in age from 17 to 89. But while seeing the 17-year-old with breast cancer broke her heart, and finding the resiliency of the 89-year-old remarkable, it was her encounter with a third woman that left an impression Richards vividly recalls several years later.
"She was a Spanish speaking lady," she said. "I went into her room, and she was alone. She did not speak English. I do not speak Spanish. The interpreter had not gotten there yet, and the lady was terrified. You could see it on her face. She was sitting on the exam table, and as I moved closer, she literally fell into my arms. So I stood there and held her until she wanted to let go. She knew that I cared, and that I was there for her. We didn't have to say a word."
Besides making an Angel available to provide encouragement and care on the day a breast cancer patient receives her care plan, the Angel Squad provides those patients with tote bags packed with a heart-shaped pillow and gift bags.
The heart-shaped pillow, Richards explained, serves an important purpose.
"They are used as protection from the seat belt while a patient is tender," she said. "I wore mine out. It's just a great little accessory for someone undergoing breast cancer treatments to have. A group of ladies at Asbury United Methodist Church make the pillows for us, and they do a beautiful job. The patients love those pillows."
Richards, who currently serves as president of the 26-member Angel Squad, hopes to add more youth to the group to ensure its work continues far into the future.
"We're getting older," she said. "We have one or two younger members, but we need more than that. We need them to keep the Angel Squad going."