Sitting in the sanitized light of a conference room describing two-year-old events, the emotion behind Jessica Parrott’s brown eyes betray the steadiness of her voice when she describes one of the most harrowing events of her life — discovering her mother had breast cancer.

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month winds to an end, the prospect of taking an out of sight, out of mind attitude toward breast cancer is a luxury thousands of families in Iowa and millions of families around the nation can’t afford. The Parrott family is one of those families. 

Parrott, a freshman in genetics, was in her junior year of high school in 2012 when she and her mother, Lee Parrott, were on their way from their home in Portage, Wis., to Thanksgiving dinner at her grandparents home in Milwaukee. Lee’s parents already knew she had cancer and Lee decided her daughter needed to know before they arrived.

“I remember in the car, it was so weird because we were just driving, listening to music,” said Parrott. “She turned the music down and said, ‘Alright, I need to tell you something’.”

Lee said the four words over 230,000 other women were forced to say that year, “I have breast cancer.”

Thoughts and questions raced through Jessica’s head when she heard the news.

“What does that mean? What is going to happen?” she asked herself. “It was weird you know because you hear about breast cancer and [how] it affects a lot of women. It was like, ‘What happens now?’, you know.”

Unfortunately, Jessica and Lee’s story is far too common of an occurrence. Today, American women face a one in eight chance of developing breast cancer at some point in their lives. In 2013 alone, over 230,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer.

Lee’s course of treatment was similar to thousands of other women with Stage II breast cancer. After discovering the cancer, Lee underwent a pair of surgeries at St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison, Wis.. After her first surgery, a lumpectomy, doctors discovered the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and decided a mastectomy was necessary.

When Lee recovered from her surgeries, she received chemotherapy for about three months, which was followed by three more months of radiation treatments.

“The chemo was to get rid of it and the radiation was to make sure it was gone,” said Lee, who has no family history of the disease. “I still get checked out every three months.”

Cancer treatment can be grueling physically and emotionally. Jessica said it was difficult watching her mother change physically throughout treatment and be sick without being able to help her. 

Jessica and her father Tom, a Wisconsin State Trooper, and brother Jake, a student at Beloit College, found helping more around the house and spending more time with Lee helped get the family through the rough time. 

“I think the hardest part [physically] was trying to deal with the fatigue as you’re going through treatment,” Lee said. “You just get so tired and it’s hard to explain. It’s not like you can just get some sleep and then you’re OK.”

Experts say it’s important for cancer patients and survivors to seek out emotional support from people who have personally been through the disease themselves. Lee said she found that emotional support in a place she wasn’t expecting.

“I was very fortunate,” Lee said. “One of my coworkers had just gone through a very similar type of breast cancer. She was willing to share some of her experiences with me and help me out. In fact, it really helped her heal through the whole process too.”

Jessica and her mother both emphasized the importance of savoring the good things in life and not sweating the small stuff. 

“Going through the whole thing with the chemo, losing your hair and having a wig, you really had to have a sense of humor about yourself and not take yourself too seriously,” Lee said. “You have to find the humor when you can.”

Jessica echoed her mother’s sentiment.

“It gets better,” she said. “It’s not the end of the world and having a sense of humor and being able to laugh about it definitely helps.”

The five year survival rate for patients with regional breast cancer is 84 percent. As of today, Lee has been cancer free for over a year. 

Kelsey McCarty and Briana Brunsvold, co-presidents of the ISU chapter of Colleges Against Cancer, said there are many ways students can fight back against cancer, including participating in the organization’s Relay For Life held in Lied Recreation Center, March 6 and 7.

“We recognize and honor a lot of cancer survivors from around the area, and we also remember people who have passed away from cancer,” McCarty said. “You can even create a team with your dorm floor or any organization on campus.”

Colleges Against Cancer donates all of their proceeds to the American Cancer Society. The goal this year is to raise $115,000.

Fighting cancer has personal relevance for Brunsvold and McCarty. Brunsvold has had many family members battle cancer and McCarty’s mother passed away from endometrial cancer — a type of uterine cancer — when she was nine-years-old.

“Colleges Against Cancer has been very positive [for me],” McCarty said. “It allows me to fight back every single day and put a positive spin on the outcome. It gives me a way to help others who are going through the same thing [I did].”

McCarty and Brunsvold encourage students who are interesting in joining or helping Colleges Against Cancer to get involved at any level they are comfortable with.

“Individually you think you don’t make a huge difference in the fight against cancer,” Brunsvold said. “But when you work as a team, as an organization, getting to raise over $100,000 that makes a huge difference. It’s something you’re very proud to be a part of.”

McCarty works with Colleges Against Cancer for a single, lofty purpose.

“That’s my life goal, to see an end to cancer before I die,” she said.

If a loved one is currently fighting or has passed away from cancer or any other disease, Student Counseling Services is open and willing to help Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.