Mike Story was a fit, active man nearing 50 when he got the devastating news that he had breast cancer that had metastasized to his bones. The news was utterly shocking. Any man would be stunned to get this diagnosis, because males account for fewer than 1% of breast cancer cases. But the blow was especially poignant for Mike, who'd lost his dear wife, Kelly, to breast cancer just one year earlier.
So now he was again visiting the familiar halls of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, where his wife was cared for during her two-and-a-half-year battle with breast cancer — but as a patient himself, with a bewildering diagnosis. Mike, who has had a long career in advertising and is Executive Vice President of Advantage Home Telehealth, Inc., a medical-device company on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, is feeling good as he pursues the treatment plan put together by his Roswell Park care team.
“There’s a whole lot that’s gone on in the last few years. There’s a lot that comes at you,” says Mike. “It’s life. You deal with it and you get through it.”
The Storys had always been a close-knit family, but the challenges of recent years have just forged Mike’s bond with his only child, Carly, a young woman of 20 who is in her third year at Canisius College, even stronger.
Father and daughter are determined to beat this latest challenge with equal doses of determination and optimism, and they're committed to spreading awareness about breast cancer — as it affects both men and women — and supporting efforts toward not just beating, but curing the disease.
“I want to reach out to people my age who’ve had similar experiences,” says Carly, who co-captained a team that raised more than $2,000 in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure this past June.
Learn more about Mike and Carly in this CBS News segment that aired on “The Early Show” Wednesday, October 27, 2010.
Annie Deck-Miller, Senior Media Relations Manager
716-845-8593; annie.deck-miller@roswellpark.org