appointment. She followed through with that
promise, foreshadowing a commitment to
her family that she would uphold despite the
effects of her treatment.
“He played, and I tried to eat,” she said.
“But I had told him we were going, so we
went.”
Following her diagnosis, Joyce took
immediate action. On June 12, 1991, she
underwent a mastectomy with reconstruction
and in July of that year, she began
chemotherapy.
“What they say about chemo is no joke. I
became deathly sick. Within the first three
weeks, I started losing my hair,” she said.
Her kids, she said, kept her going. The day
after her surgery, she watched Steve pitch his
first little league game. Her older son Mark,
who was 12 years old at the time, was her
rock, she expressed, even shaving her head for
her once her hair started falling out.
“He never left my side,” she said. “I would
tell him, ‘Please go play, I’m fine.’ Once, he
looked back at me with tears in his eyes and
said, ‘But if I leave you, you’re going to die.’ It
turns out that he felt this way because he had
a friend whose mom had died from advanced
breast cancer. It was terribly hard.”
Despite how poorly she felt physically, she
knew that she had to keep going. Throughout
her treatment and diagnosis, she attended
every single sporting event and extracurricular
activity her kids were involved in. She went
sled riding and marched in a St. Patrick’s Day
parade with the wind chill below zero.
“It was tough, but I survived,” she said. “I
had to be there for them.”
On her 10th anniversary of beating the
odds, Joyce’s surgeon revealed that, at the
time, she had been given only a five-year
survival rate following her diagnosis.
Today, at 57, she is a 22-year breast cancer
survivor. Her sons are 31 and 35, both
accomplished military veterans, and she is
a grandmother of four. This spring, Joyce
and her husband will participate, as they
have done annually since her diagnosis, in
Pittsburgh’s Race for the Cure.
“The Race for the Cure means a lot to me