It’s a passing that would touch anyone’s heart: a mother of 11 children from Michigan loses her battle from late-stage breast cancer, leaving behind kids ranging in age from 4 to 23. On a GoFundMe page set up to help pay for Rashida Lawson’s funeral expenses, her children wrote that her death, and her diagnosis, came as a complete surprise. They were not even aware their mother was ill at all until a week before she passed away.
“My mom had gotten severely sick a week ago and [had] been in the hospital ever since,” daughter Tamera Stone wrote on the GoFundMe page, which was set up on April 15. “Friday the doctors approached my siblings and I with the news that she had stage four breast cancer and that it had spread and that her organs were failing.” The 44-year-old mother passed away shortly thereafter.
Read MoreLawson didn’t visit the doctor, her children told local media, until her breasts started “leaking”.
“Her chest was leaking,” one of Lawson’s daughers, Tamera, told Fox 5 News. “She thought it was milk and stuff. We were like ma, you’ve got to go get this checked out, this is very serious.”
Now another of Lawson’s adult daughters, Destiny, will care for three of the children.
Because Lawson was so busy caring for her large family, she may not have had the time to keep up with regular doctor appointments. At just 44 years old, she was not yet at the age where doctor’s recommend yearly mammograms (though she was just a year shy). However, when it comes to health, we always recommend people be as vigilant as they can.
With breast cancer in particular, paying attention to how your breasts normally look and feel will be beneficial if anything out of the ordinary does pop up. The American Cancer Society says that there is no clear benefit to doing self examinations for breast cancer; however, there are other reputable organizations that disagree. When discussing self exams in general, Dr. Elizabeth Comen, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, said that one way to monitor your health is to pay attention to what’s normal and what’s not.
“When we think about breast cancer prevention and awareness, the first step is that women need to feel comfortable with their breast and know what their breasts feel like normally,” she said. That way, if you feel something abnormal, you can take action,” she told SurvivorNet, in a previous interview not related to Lawson’s sad passing.
Rashida Lawson also had three grandchildren and a fourth on the way. She was also caring for a young nephew.
Her children said proceeds from the GoFundMe campaign will help them overcome their mounting debts– and hopefully provide some financial support going forward.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
