Imagine one minute you're thinking of adding to your family, then the next minute you're just trying to stay alive.

It happened to a very young Springfield mother who chose what some may consider a drastic path, but she considered her only hope.

Thirty-year-old Melody Wasson spends her days, and some nights, at St. John's Hospital comforting patients. Good bed side manner is important. Melody should know.

"I actually work on the gynecology floor, which is where I spent time a lot of my time as a patient," she says.

Melody was in bed, not beside it, just over a year ago after being diagnosed with breast cancer at age 28.

"I can remember waking my husband up, saying 'I think I feel something...' and he's like, 'no, it's nothing...."  

But it was something, in her right breast triple negative breast cancer. Cancer that can't be treated with hormone therapy like Tamoxifen.

Chemotherapy was her only option, plus one other step she insisted on.

"Bilateral mastectomy. The right breast was the one that had the cancer, and the left one was considered prophylactic because it was still a healthy breast and I just made the choice to have it removed."

Melody has something referred to as the 'BRCA Gene' which is a genetic mutation that greatly increases her risk of breast cancer.  Her great grandmother had it and died - her mother survived.  Melody decided she wanted life more than she wanted breasts.

"You also think, I want to live the rest of my life, so the choice for me was I'm going to trade these off so that I have life, and I have my husband and my family and my daughter forever."

Instead of mourning her loss, she embraced her life.  Documenting her journey through photographs.

"He [her husband] enjoyed shaving my head I think, actually."

And to share her journey Melody has blogged about it since day one. Among 10,000 visitors, and 950 e-mails, she met a kindred spirit.

"We had our chemotherapy on the exact same dates.  She was in New York, though.  And I actually flew to New York last March and we went to New York City together."

So this survivor spends her days showing others what's possible.  "When they see that they think it's hope, 'if she can do it, I can do it. This is what it's going to look like when I'm through this journey.'"

A journey she hopes no one ever has to take alone.

According to the National Cancer Institute, a woman who has inherited a harmful mutation of  BRCA-1 or BRCA-2 is about five times more likely to develop breast cancer than a woman who does not have such a mutation.

The couple's three-year-old daughter may have the gene and may not, Melody hopes for better treatment down the road.

By the way, the American Cancer Society's 'Making Strides Against Breast Cancer' walk is this Saturday at Jordan Valley Park.

For more information:

National Cancer Institutes/BRCA Gene Information:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/BRCA

WebMD: Experimental Drugs May Effectively Treat Triple Negative Breast Cancer:
http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/news/20090602/new-drug-for-hard-to-treat-breast-cancer

Cancer Walk Information:
http://makingstrides.acsevents.org/site/TR?fr_id=19875&pg=entry

Melody's Blog:
http://myfightagainstbreastcancer.blogspot.com/