On Friday May 21, Paint Branch had its first assembly ever about breast cancer. As the auditorium filled up with junior and senior girls, the women of Suburban Hospital who came as representatives passed out bags as the girls were arriving. The bags contained a pen as well as different pamphlets about women’s health, including one which  provided information on ways to decrease the odds of getting cancer.

The assembly started off with senior Kelsey Challenger providing  an introduction for the event  and introducing  the first two guest speakers who are both breast cancer survivors. The first guest speaker was Paint Branch’s very own Jessica Brouser, a Spanish  teacher here at PB, who talked about her experience with  breast cancer. When she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, her son was just one year old.The doctors found more than one tumor, and  she had to do chemo for five months and radiation for three weeks.

Another one of Paint Branch’s own also took to the stage, Ms.  Amy Rose, a  social studies teacher. Ms. Rose first received the news three years ago in July that she had breast cancer. She told the audience of her response to the news and how just two weeks before school started she had surgery and then completed  five weeks of radiation.

The third and final speaker was a guest speaker, who – before she spoke –  asked the students to take out the blank small pink sheets that were provided in the bags and write down any questions they had so that she could answer them at the end. She then started to talk about the big three risk factors of breast cancer which are: getting older, having a family history, and being a woman. She also talked about how you detect breast cancer and demonstrated how to do a self- examination. Lastly, she addressed the questions created by the students in the audience and continued to guide students on a path to a healthy lifestyle.