Sharing a genetic mutation, Ortiz and sisters Wanda Ortiz-Giralt (left) and Madeline Ortiz-Leonard (right), another survivor, had preemptive surgery.
Annette John-Hall: She and sisters doing all they can to conquer a family enemy: Cancer
Just before Christmas last year, after her breast cancer had returned and metastasized to her brain, my friend Gloria urged - make that ordered - me to make sure at least one of us became a witness to history.
After all, she said, I had an obligation not only as a journalist but also as an African American.
"I don't care how you get there," she told me, "but you make sure you get yourself to D.C. in time for that inauguration."
It was a bittersweet journey.
Because Washington was where I got the news that Gloria Harper Dickinson - scholar of the African diaspora, College of New Jersey professor, wife, Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sister, world traveler, and unofficial inventor of networking - had died at 61, the day before Barack Obama was sworn in as 44th president of the United States.
Some of you may remember Gloria from the column I wrote two years ago about her battle with inflammable breast cancer, which accounts for 1 to 5 percent of all breast-cancer cases in the United States, slightly more in African American women, and is one of the rarest and most aggressive forms.
Any disease would have to be mighty tough to bring my endlessly energetic friend down, and this was. Her cancer presented at Stage 3 and was particularly cruel.
Barely a month after a year's worth of treatment - a mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation - the cancer recurred in Gloria's remaining breast.
"I am trying to figure out the why," she said after her second diagnosis, "but the one thing I know is that I am supposed to get the information out."
Awareness month
So I have vowed that every October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I will fulfill Gloria's wish to raise awareness about a disease that one out of every 12 women will contract.
Which was why, after meeting Vivian Ortiz recently while researching a column on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, I felt I had to tell her story, too.
Ortiz, 46, is president of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Conference of Puerto Rican Women.
To call her a survivor is an understatement.
Her ordeal began in 2006 when doctors diagnosed Stage 2 breast cancer.
But her family's battle with cancer had started years earlier.
Her mother died of ovarian cancer in 1979. Her younger sister had it diagnosed in 1984, and two maternal uncles died of pancreatic and colon cancer.
But still. No one had ever had breast cancer.
"I thought it would always be ovarian," Ortiz reasoned, "so I was always diligent about getting tested for that."
