How three Californians
struggled to realize their
dream of a Breast Cancer
Research stamp.

After a near-fatal car crash, doctors told this long-distance runner she would never run again. When the diagnosis was breast cancer, they said she would never live. When she teamed up with a surgeon and a widower to challenge the norms of the U.S. Postal Service, they said she would never win. They were wrong.
     One day two years ago, Betsy Mullen woke up in her Washington hotel room to do what she had done the day before and the day before and what she had been dreaming about the night before. Flinging her feet over the side of the bed, she prepared that day to take countless steps up and down the cool, hard floors of the U.S. Capitol, from office to office, knocking on every door, and speaking to anyone who would listen. People told her it would take nothing short of an act of God to convince Congress to pass a type of bill that, before her arrival, would never have been considered.
     That day, Mullen's legs buckled, and the breast cancer survivor of three and a half years feared the worst: that the disease had metastasized to her bones. On wobbly legs, she left her room to pound the unforgiving, marble floors of the Capitol. She had witnessed acts of God before and was determined to see at least one more.
     Bodai called on Betsy Mullen to join him in his Washington campaign. Doctors diagnosed Mullen with breast cancer in 1992 at age 33. A market research analyst, she abandoned her career to form the Women's Information Network Against Breast Cancer (WIN ABC), which provides information and support for life-and-death decisions about treatment options. When WIN Board Member David Goodman, who had lost his wife to breast cancer less than a year before, learned about the lobbying effort, he called Bodai and volunteered for service. The team - a survivor, a surgeon, and a widower - proved hard to refuse. Congressional doors started to open, and overworked legislative aides took time to listen. top