The Pink Moon Lovelies are members of the Facebook group Beyond the Pink Moon, named after Nicki Boscia Durlester's memoir that intimately chronicles her journey after a breast cancer diagnosis. Nicki created the group to provide an active forum for discussion to raise awareness about the BRCA gene and breast and ovarian cancer. She never dreamed her homespun story would travel around the globe and Beyond the Pink Moon would become a support group for people from all walks of life coming together to lift each other up with inspiration, humor, faith and love. With Lovelies in Australia, Canada, England, France, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Namibia, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden, Tasmania and the USA, Nicki, a BRCA2 survivor, and fellow moderator, Melissa Johnson Voight, a BRCA1 previvor, whose journey of steadfast faith and courage of conviction is included in this book, have encouraged their members to tell their stories with one goal in mind, to save lives. With a Foreword written by renowned breast surgeon, Dr. Kristi Funk, this riveting collection of 50 stories includes: the unflinching account of Barbie Ritzco, a United States Marine who kept silent about discovering a lump in her breast in order to deploy with her unit to Afghanistan, putting her country before her health, the moving story of Ally Durlester, Nicki's daughter, a 25 year old BRCA2 previvor who will undergo prophylactic surgery to try to avoid the same fate as her mother, grandmother and six great-aunts who all had breast, ovarian or fallopian tube cancer, the frustrating story of Erika Grogin Lange, an Israeli Lovely and mother of five, whose nagging symptoms of fatigue, nausea and bloating went undiagnosed for months until she heard the shocking news that she had Stage III ovarian cancer, and the unpredictable journey of Susan Long Martucci, a two-time breast cancer survivor, disease free for 13 years, blindsided by another diagnosis. She is the beacon of hope who coined the
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