When Lucinda Stowe, 50, gathers together a group of friends for a breast cancer awareness Girls Night In Party this month, she?ll have one overriding message for them ?fight for your health?.

Bermuda TB Cancer and Health is urging women to get together for a Girls Night In to celebrate friendships and raise money to fight breast cancer throughout October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The idea is simple, invite some female friends or family members over, enjoy some quality time and make a donation to The Bermuda TB Cancer & Health Association equivalent to what they might have spent on a night out.

Many cancer survivors, family members and friends are using a ?Girls Night In? party, to bond with their girlfriends, and to reflect on their health, talk about ?girly? stuff like mammograms and breasts and their own experiences with the disease.

One Girls Night In organiser is Mrs. Stowe, an 11-year breast cancer survivor. She will be hosting around 12 friends.

She teaches life skills classes to at risk children, works as a nursing assistant and volunteer at Agape House, and has three beautiful grandchildren to spoil.

Today she is a person who has life firmly by the horns, but back in 1995 when a lump in her breast turned out to be cancerous, her life wasn?t nearly so certain.

?I went to my doctor and he did a biopsy and said you have cancer and you need to get this removed as quick as possible,? said Mrs. Stowe. ?I had three sons ages 11, 13 and 18, and I was abroad. I said, give me two days to settle my children and I will be back.?

Seventy-five percent of her treatment was done abroad, although she did return to Bermuda for chemotherapy.

?Losing my hair wasn?t the hardest thing,? she said. ?I felt that as long as I can recognise that I have no hair then I must be alive. I had my children to think about.

?I had to think about more than just me being ill. I had to think who is going to look after them. What if I die? I was sitting in that bed, I rolled it up.

?I said, ?let?s take a deep breath here?. What is most important to me at this time? My children are the most important thing to me.?

Often she had to turn to her sons for support, and during the interview she became teary eyed talking about them, calling them ?her angels?.

?I am also grateful for the support of my husband, Michael Stowe,? she said. ?All I ever wanted to do was see my children grow and see my grandchildren.?

She loves working at Agape House, because she empathises with the patients.

?I really enjoy working with the people there, especially if they are younger people. I love talking to them. I love trying to make them comfortable. I know what it feels like to be laying there.

?When I was in the United States, I had all these old ladies from the Salvation Army come into my room. They would sit and knit, or talk. They?d say ?hello, my name is so and so?. I use to become a little angry because I didn?t know them, but at the same time I felt like I wasn?t alone. Half of them I can?t remember their names.

?What I liked about them was they understood that no one needs to be alone going through something like that.?

At her Girls Night In party, she will be talking about her experiences with breast cancer.

?It is important for people to share what has happened to them,? she said.

Mrs. Stowe said it is vital that women go to all their required medical check-ups, and get in touch with their own bodies. She said if women are afraid to check their own breasts for lumps they should ask a close girlfriend to do it.

?Some women are afraid,? she said. ?They touch their breasts and they feel a little lump and they never touch it again. They don?t want to do anything about it. They are afraid it might be cancerous. The time you are standing around and doing nothing, it is growing rapidly, and having fun in your body. You have to cut the fun out.?

She said that if a woman sees something on her body that is normally not there, she should seek medical attention.

?If the doctor brushes it off, you go back to him and you tell him you want whatever test can possibly done,? she said. ?You have to be extremely aggressive when you see lumps. Most of the doctors now are cognisant that a lump may mean that there is something going on. They will attend to it.

?What is the worst that lump could be? What you?re thinking? So go see if what you are thinking is correct. I think that treatment today is a lot friendlier than it was 11 years ago.

?You don?t want to be afraid unless you know what you are afraid of. It is more important to get out there and have your body checked than sitting down and complaining.?

Mrs. Stowe tells all of her friends and family, ?You have one life, and that is the life you have to live?.

She said it is also important to stay positive, and not to think that cancer is automatically a death sentence.

?This is not an illness that you succumb to,? she said. ?You go kicking and screaming. Do everything in your power that is possible to understand it.

?You have to understand your treatment. You have to understand what the medicines are going to do.

?You have to understand the cocktail they are giving you, the chemotherapy regime. Understand what it will be doing to the body. Understand the changes your body is going through. Be prepared for it. They have a lot of literature before you start the treatment. Read it!

?No matter how sick you are, still try to ask questions. Any changes that are taking over your body that you didn?t hear about, tell them. It might mean that something else is wrong or going on.

?When you are in that predicament you will respect the fact that the doctors truly understand how you are feeling and the stages you go through, first the denial, and then the depression. Understand all of that.?

Mrs. Stowe also said that support from family and friends can really boost a person who is sick or hospitalised.

?I had fantastic friends,? she said. ?I had one friend who was an angel on my shoulder. I got those calls and I heard those voices. I did realise that a couple of my friends in Bermuda couldn?t say anything to me.

?They said, ?oh I was going to call you, but girl I didn?t know what to say?. Just call and say, ?I don?t know what to say, but I am thinking about you?.?

Contact TB Cancer and Health to register for a Girls Night In party or for more information about cancer resources, and patient and family support available in Bermuda at 236-1001.