Word: moms
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...Ryan G. Schaffer '00 traveled with his mother, Jan, from their home in Cleveland to Philadelphia to see a specialist who might be able to treat his mom's rare form of cancer. Jan Schaffer had first been diagnosed in 1982, and after a brief period of radiation treatment, a doctor declared her cured. She returned to normal life for a while--if you can call being the single mother of three energetic sons normal. But eight years later the cancer returned. When Ryan and his mother spoke with the Philadelphia doctor, he told her she had six months...
...mom wouldn't give up," he says, "and there was no way that she wasn't going to be there for me and my brothers. She was the most determined person I've ever met." The next six years brought many more doctors, and many more treatments. "We called everyone in the country...everyone in the world who we thought might help...
...Through Ryan's high school years his mom struggled, balancing work, her son's sports schedule and trips around the country for treatment. In the summer of 1996, before his freshman year at Harvard, the cancer returned and doctors told her that treatment methods had been exhausted. Ryan thought of postponing Harvard for a year, but his mom wouldn't hear of it and so he left reluctantly to start school. But one morning in late October, his brother called and asked him to come home. On November 4, 1996, Ryan held his mother's hand as she passed away...
...Schaffer hadn't always been surrounded by friends. When his parents divorced in 1982, Ryan's mom knew that her teaching career couldn't support her three boys. She went to work in advertising and eventually successfully started her own company. Without support from her ex-husband, she put each of her three sons through a top-notch private school and managed to somehow keep the family home...
...mom was a fighter," Ryan comments. And fight she did--with loan officers, little league umpires, and with a prognosis that she refused to believe. "When, inevitably, the cancer would come back, months, or even weeks later, my mom refused to give up. She was determined to beat the disease, and she showed more strength and courage during her battles than anyone I have ever...