Understand the disease and have the right attitude
First Lady Betty Ford beat cancer in more ways than one. In the 1970s, when the c-word was fearfully whispered and only weeks moving into the White House, Ford announced she had cancer. Her motivation was to increase awareness to save ‘at least one person — maybe more’. She had a huge effect on early breast cancer detection, something epidemiologists call the “Betty Ford blip”. She went all out to treat her cancer, and lived another 37 years until she died this year at 93, of natural causes.
(This story appears in the 04 November, 2011 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)