She visited 19 surgeons before finding one that would agree to let her wake up after the biopsy and consider her options.
Rose insisted on knowing the results of her biopsy, having a chance to consult with specialists, and choosing her treatment. While this is the norm today, it was highly irregular in
1974.
Rose admitted she had a streak of stubbornness, and a loud voice. She used both when her biopsy proved positive, convincing doctors to treat her cancer with a less radical mastectomy.
Then she put those qualities to work for other women, campaigning at at medical symposiums and doctors' meetings. She insisted women had
the right to know different treatments were available.
By 1979, she had convinced the National Institutes of Health to reject the one-step treatment and to agree the radical mastectomy was not always the best treatment. Smaller operations, combined with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy helped women survive with less disfigurement.
Rose even took on the president of the United States. When President Gerald Ford's wife Betty was
diagnosed with breast cancer, Rose questioned her decision to undergo the one-step, radical mastectomy treatment. But word came, The President has made his decision.
Rose wrote in response, That statement has got to be engraved somewhere as the all-time sexist declaration of no-woman rights.
Rose's cancer returned in 1981, and she died of the disease nine years later. But her voice lives
on, whenever a woman with breast cancer acquires medical knowledge and participates in choosing her treatment. One in eight woman in America will face that challenge.
