“My mom’s a hero!”
So says the 8-year-old daughter of Paulette Leaphart. Since April 30, Paulette has been walking 1,000 miles, with her daughter, to protest the cost of cancer treatments and drugs. Mrs. Leaphart, a breast cancer survivor, is homeless now, having once had a large home and eight children. Paulette is walking topless, starting from her home in Biloxi, Mississippi, showing off the results of a double mastectomy she underwent in her treatments for breast cancer.
Everybody that saw my breastless chest, whatever they was going through, all of a sudden it didn’t seem so bad.
Paulette Leaphart made a promise to God when she was six years old and the victim of severe child abuse. She promised if she survived she would take care of children and have a big family in a big house. She kept her promise and adopted a child for every child she gave birth to. Eight children in all, Paulette lived in a large home until medical bills and her cancer took that away from her and her family. Her homelessness is the result of exorbitant costs in her cancer treatment.
Cancer isn’t a race thing and it isn’t a gender thing. Cancer could care less what God you believe or don’t believe in. If you can be in Washington D.C. to meet up with Paulette and her daughter when they arrive on June 27, please do and tell Congress to cure some of these ills. Leaphart has been telling her story with film director Emily Mackenzie, who is shooting all of Leaphart’s progress. Part of their story, part of Paulette’s story, is ridding herself of the pink ribbons of modern breast cancer awareness. She feels that the stylization detracts from the seriousness of the disease.
By telling her story, Leaphart is determined to change this narrative. “I don’t want to give them a pretty story wrapped up in a pretty pink bow,” Leaphart said. “Because that’s not what it is.”
Part of Leaphart’s story is her own and part of this walk is to bring attention to all of the many Paulette Leaphart’s out there.
Currently, a considerable portion of cancer research funding goes to pharmaceutical companies for treatment advancement. While many of these drugs give some a new lease on life, the high cost of development can also make them prohibitively expensive for individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
“The money raised by women walking for a cure goes into an industry that often cuts out women like Paulette who don’t have the resources to buy them,” said Mackenzie, noting that following her cancer treatment, Leaphart’s family was left in a precarious financial position. “A huge amount of money goes into researching treatment as opposed to looking at environmental causes of cancer and illness.”
Leaphart wants our elected officials to act. We all know what’s wrong and it’s time to act like serious people about those problems.
You know, I’m bringing awareness, but we got enough awareness in this country. We need a cure.
You can watch more about Paulette Leaphart, below the fold.