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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Lisa Brown cries when she recalls how she found out she had breast cancer.

“I was in prison and I found a lump,” she says. Actually, Brown was doing 60 days in jail for drug paraphernalia and possession of a controlled substance.

When she got out, she didn’t know where to turn. She was homeless and had no insurance. She ended up at Cooper Green Mercy Hospital, where she found out it was Stage IV cancer — the worst stage — and had spread to her lymph nodes.

“I was so scared. I was living on the streets and dealing with cancer,” she said.

Two years later, she is no longer homeless and her cancer is in remission. But women like Brown are the reason Cynthia Ryan, a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a two-time survivor of breast cancer, launched an event today for homeless women in the Birmingham area.

The event, Street Smarts, drew about 100 homeless women to the Church of the Reconciler, where they were treated to manicures, haircuts, facials and lunch. But there was also an important message embedded in the program.

“Prevention is always key,” Stephanie Biggers, a registered nurse in the oncology department at Cooper Green, told the women. “Get mammograms every year, do a breast self-exam and get a breast exam from your doctor. Those are the ABC’s of breast cancer prevention.”

The idea for the breast cancer awareness program in the homeless community came to Ryan a couple of years ago, when she began working with homeless women dealing with cancer. What she found was that many lacked education about breast health and warning signs. She also realized that the women frequently have a history of physical, emotional and sexual abuse that diminishes their self and body images.

“Homeless women tend to be overlooked anyway, and so many of these women have never been touched in a way that wasn’t abusive,” Ryan said. “The idea here today is to nurture their bodies with lunch and their self-image with facials and manicures. Then we’ll ease into the message about breast health.”

Ryan partnered with the Susan B. Komen Foundation of North Central Alabama to fund the program, which she hopes to do two or three times a year.

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