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Update: Maricela Ochoa-Henderson passed away at 5 a.m. on Oct. 10. She was at home surrounded by her family and friends.

Profiles in Pink Blog: It’s going to sound weird, but I think I’m obsessed with Maricela Ochoa-Henderson. I mean that in the best of ways. She’s become a personal light for me.

It started with my visit to the IV League, the Breast Cancer Resource Center’s support group for women with Stage IV breast cancer. It was a rare opportunity. The group normally doesn’t even allow its own facilitator to sit in, much less a reporter. As I walked toward the building, camera and tripod in hand, I wanted to pinch myself.

I didn’t know at the time that it was Maricela who made it all happen. She had shocked the other IV League women by appearing at the meeting that day. Everyone knew how sick she was. This could be the last meeting they had with her… maybe allowing a stranger with a camera take part in this moment wasn’t such a good idea.

It turns out that Maricela had been adamant in insisting YNN be there. When I asked her about it later, she said with a gleam in her eye that the camera was “fun” for her because it was her “home.”

It’s that strength that makes Maricela superhuman to me. You see her now: a bald, frail woman in a wheelchair with sunken eyes and swollen legs, and you see her before: a beautiful actress with raven hair, fire in her eyes and a smirk on her lips, and you are astounded, simply astounded, because both versions of Maricela are suddenly sitting before you. You can’t un-see the damage the cancer’s done to her body, but you can’t deny either she’s the same Maricela Ochoa-Henderson who brought crowds to their feet in theaters across the country. Just as her character said on the TV show “Joan of Arcadia,” "If you make snap judgments of people without looking into their past, you'll never begin to understand them."

So I began looking into Maricela’s past, obsessively. Here’s a headshot of her, her imbd profile, and even an interview she did with KEYE last year.

When I went to Maricela’s house to see her a second time, I confessed that I was guilty of cyber-stalking her. She laughed. Then she said, “Thank you.”

When I went back to see her a third time, her brother-in-law came to the door. He said Maricela had just salsa-danced in her wheel chair the night before but that she was now too weak for visitors. Her family from around the state had already gathered at her bedside.

As of last check Wednesday afternoon, Maricela’s husband said she was rapidly declining.

I hope Maricela knows there’s a stranger out there thinking about her, ready to stick a camera in her face again at the first opportunity. I have a feeling she’d like knowing there’s still a paparazzi journalist on her heels.

Check out the video below to see the full interview with Maricela Ochoa-Henderson.

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Profiles in Pink Blog: I saved this story for last, to end Profiles in Pink on a high note. If this series had come out 40 years ago, each piece would have been about someone dying, but the leap in breast cancer research and awareness has been so big during the last decade that death is now the exception.

So what happens if you are the exception?

Imagine you’re Marie Carmel. You've been a vegetarian since you were 16. You exercise, and basically do everything right. Then, out of nowhere, you’re diagnosed with breast cancer. You go through chemo. You think positive. You follow every suggestion doctors give. Then you learn it was all for nothing; somehow, your cancer still progresses to Stage IV. You're still going to die.

No wonder Marie's not a big fan of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Each October, the optimism of women fighting lower stages of breast cancer must seem like a slap in the face.

"There’s probably very few feelings in the world that are as bad as driving down Lamar [Boulevard] and seeing a big, 'I can beat cancer' banner hanging across the road when you’ve just been diagnosed with Stage IV and know you can not beat it," she explained.

The American Cancer Society said a Stage IV breast cancer diagnosis gives you a 15 percent chance of being alive in five years. Marie has already survived nine years, but she sees her victory as temporary because she's already lost 30 of her IV League sisters. I too, would be wondering if I was next.

Sorry, I know I said at the beginning of this post that this story was supposed to be positive, but I just can't get away from the yin and the yang of breast cancer. You may only choose to see the white side, but it cannot exist without the black. If only it didn't have to be that way.

Now here's the truth, it doesn't.

If people like Dr. Alexzander Asea continue to plug away at cancer research, perhaps one day breast cancer will be no more threatening than the Chicken Pox. That's actually the comparison Dr. Asea uses when he describes the promises of his developmental drug. He hopes NampEVA will teach your body to build an immunity to breast cancer. If you get it once, you'll never get it again.

Can you imagine a world where breast cancer vaccines are offered at your doctor's office? Where the disease shows up next to Scarlet Fever and Polio under the wikipedia page for extinct illnesses?

The researchers I've met say they expect that to happen in their lifetime. The bigger uncertainty is whether it will happen in Marie's. So I guess the message is, hurry up.
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Profiles in Pink Blog: Arnie and Marshall are just as hard to crack as they look. You’re never clear if they’re kidding or being serious, a conundrum for a gullible reporter who’s trying to tell a true “human” story.

These two were actually the first breast cancer survivors I interviewed for Profiles in Pink. Heading into it, I thought they might be embarrassed to talk about the disease. As many have eloquently put it, “Men don’t even have breasts!” I expected a blush or at least some nervous shifting, but Arnie and Marshall were deadpan, shooters as straight as they come.

There really is nothing funny about male breast cancer, and it’s short of miraculous that two friends living in the same city should be diagnosed within the same year. An oncologist said it was like “finding two needles in a haystack.” I brought that up to Arnie and Marshall, asking them if they thought it happened to them for a reason.

The two looked at me expressionless for a few seconds. Then, Arnie raised his eyebrows and began wiggling his fingers. “You mean like, oooooh?” Now I was the one blushing.

The sentimental questions ended there. I should have taken them to a bar, rather than a gym, as they had first suggested. I wouldn’t mind kicking back a few beers with the entertaining duo. I still laugh as I replay the footage.

I take my hat off to Arnie and Marshall for the wonderful gentleman they are, for their straightforward acceptance of a disease that’s usually pink and female, and for their steadfast decision to just “get it over with,” as Arnie puts it.
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Profiles in Pink Blog: Suzie LaPlant’s tricks to distract you from cancer are magnificent. By the time you leave the infusion room, you feel like you’ve hung out with an old friend. And the chemo? You would’ve hardly noticed it.

Of course that’s easy to say when you’re a visiting reporter, not a patient with a tube coming out of your chest.

I hope my story doesn’t make light of what cancer patients go through. Suzie told me chemo made her lose feeling in her toes, to the point where a blister formed without her ever realizing. Marshall Sack (who you’ll meet Wednesday) told me, “A word hasn’t been invented for the fatigue you feel.” And those are only the experiences of two survivors. What would the thousands of people who died as a result of their chemotherapy’s side effects have said?

Telling stories about cancer puts you in a tough spot. On one hand, you want to advocate awareness and hope. On the other, you want to be truthful about how terrifying the disease is. There’s also the dilemma of whose story to tell. Do you focus on Suzie, who karate-kicked breast cancer to the curb, or on the equally-spirited Maricela Ochoa-Henderson (you’ll meet her Thursday), trapped inside a failing body that gets weaker every day?

I can’t say that I ever found the answers, but I tried. You’ll see in later pieces the more difficult side of breast cancer, but in this infusion room story, you’ll see pure optimism. That’s how I sincerely felt leaving the building that day. Suzie did her job and I’m not complaining.
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Profiles in Pink Blog: Driving up on Margaret Listberger’s house is like entering the aftermath of a war zone. Nestled within the towering pine trees are pile after pile of rubble. It’s hard to believe people once lived within them.

Margaret built her house a couple of years ago. She told me with a proud grin that she, herself, was the general contractor. She was also once a high school physical education teacher and coach, and a computer programmer. Certainly, she’s one capable lady.

Knowing Margaret’s history helped me understand how she could handle both Stage IV breast cancer and a wildfire. When I met her for the first time about two weeks after the fire, she didn’t show the least sign of distress. She’d settled into her newly-rented home in Central Austin, was lounging in the sofa just purchased by her insurance company, and had agreed to put aside her Mac Book for just a few minutes to meet with a reporter. It was not at all what I had expected from someone supposedly dying of cancer.

A day later, I saw Margaret again inside Texas Oncology’s infusion room. An IV pumped chemotherapy into her chest. Now the Mac Book was back in its rightful place on Margaret’s lap. Plans for the house she’s rebuilding covered a table at her side. With her feet propped up on an ottoman, she could have been a posh lady at a coffee shop, rocking a rebellious handkerchief that covered her bald head.

I pulled up a stool. We launched into a conversation about everything from our shared home state of Minnesota, to attack cats, to journalism. Margaret even began grilling me about my background, obviously enjoying having the table turned.

Then the chemo-station about 10 patients away began to beep. Margaret kept talking while my mind started to wander. Out of the corner of my eye I saw other patients becoming alarmed. They were all looking at an elderly man bent over in his treatment seat, with a bucket in his lap.

“What’s happening?” I asked Margaret. “It’s kinda scary.”

She nodded knowingly. Yes, that happens every now and then. Doctors will charge in here in about 20 seconds, she warned, but the man’s probably fine.

I’m sure Margaret thought I was scared by the man’s medical condition, but what I really meant, was that the image of him doubled over and alone was frightening. He was among the few patients in the room with no friends or family sitting around him. How terrible it must be to have no one within reach.

I guess the man did turn out to be fine. The doctors only stayed a minute, but seeing that made me hesitate to leave Margaret alone. My photographer tapped me on the shoulder after about half an hour. Other work duties called.

I bid Margaret an awkward farewell, the kind where you say goodbye three times before you actually leave, but then I reminded myself this woman has gone through five years of this. She would be fine, and I would be too, once I harden my newborn-soft reaction to the realities of cancer. It’s how you survive.

Profiles in Pink Blog: I was both excited and worried when our managing editor, Crestina Chavez, asked me to do this year’s breast cancer series. What a great chance to tell some meaningful stories, but how in the world will I be able to tell them as well as the journalist who did it before me, Crestina herself?

Crestina lost her mother to breast cancer when she was a little girl. Since then, she’s been an amazing advocate for awareness, both on and off the air. Profiles in Pink was Crestina’s invention years ago. If you look back on those stories, it’s quite obvious their power comes from being told by someone who had been there herself.

I couldn’t be more different. Not only have I not had any family members with breast cancer, I actually know no one with the disease. It's shocking, when you realize one in eight women in America will have it. I feared taking on the series would be committing fraud.

It was a useless and naïve worry.

In the weeks I’ve been working on Profiles in Pink, I met survivors who are no different than myself. Whether they were 80 years old, or 26. Female, or male. White, black, Hispanic or Asian, none of them ever thought they would get breast cancer. They were just living their lives like normal people, like me.

The story of breast cancer, or of any cancer for that matter, can be our own story. No one is isolated from it, whether you have a personal connection or not. We all have a legitimate interest in learning more, and the wisdom of people fighting cancer themselves is all around us.

I’ve laid in bed at night thinking about some of the survivors I met. Their faces are both haunting and inspirational. I feel a certain sacredness in being allowed into their worlds, camera rolling and all.

So here’s to a Profiles in Pink from somebody who knew nothing about breast cancer, who set out to be a student of the disease, and walked away learning more about what life means.