Deborah Sanderson is a social studies teacher, a former Hewlett Packard employee, a single mom, the advisor of the Pink Ribbon Club and a recent survivor of breast cancer.

The eldest of seven children, Sanderson was born in Texas and moved to California in 1963. After attending a teacher education program at Stanford University, she taught in the Sequoia School District. Ten years later, she got an engineering degree and began to work at Hewlett-Packard. However, she returned to teaching in 1994 when she came to Gunn.

In the spring of 2006, seniors Jennifer Lien and Katie Yip, who were Sanderson's current U.S. History students, asked her to be the advisor of the Pink Ribbon Club, which fundraises money for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. "I always had strong feelings about making women and men aware of the symptoms and the importance of getting mammograms and doing monthly self exams," Sanderson said.

Six months later, breast cancer became a much bigger part of her life. After her annual mammogram, her nurse called her with life-changing news. "I remember the day," Sanderson said. "I was driving to go pick my son up and said, 'I'm on the road,' and she told me to pull over. No one gives you good news if they tell you to pull over. My hands were shaking." The nurse told Sanderson that they had spotted Ductal Carcinoma In Situ, a Stage 0 type of breast cancer that is not life threatening, as it is contained only in the milk duct, but must be treated immediately. The cancer is limited to the area and does not spread to other parts of the body.

Sanderson tried to keep up her spirits about her cancer, both for her own well-being and her 13-year-old son's, who lost his father four years ago. "It's my normal disposition to laugh at most things particularly overly sensitive."

After the diagnosis, Sanderson received recommendations about doctors from other women who had had surgery. "You want to be selective in putting together your team of a surgeon, a medical oncologist and a radiation oncologist," she said.

On Nov. 7, 2006, Sanderson went in for a short surgery, and was released from the hospital just two hours later.

She healed fairly quickly from her surgery, and started radiation the following month. "Radiation is strange because they make a mold of your body because they want you to be in that exact position 30 times," Sanderson said.

However, she continued to teach her U.S. History classes. "I made the mistake of working and going through radiation," Sanderson said. "They kept telling me I would be exhausted, and sometimes it was so bad I couldn't walk across the room without feeling exhausted. But I never felt pain, just exhaustion." Thankfully, her full energy came back in about six weeks.

During this period, she informed her students of her illness. "I told [my students] because I felt like they needed to know. I told them as much as I thought appropriate without worrying them, because some girls started crying when I told them it was cancer," she said.

The Pink Ribbon Club was supportive of Sanderson in visiting her and often sending e-mails. Because she has now experienced cancer, she and the members feel it affects them even more. "When I speak about these things, it's not like I'm reading from a script," Sanderson said. "It's real, I lived it. And I can speak with more authority on breast cancer."

Club co-president Erica Lien agrees. "It's more real," Lien said. "Before we were just fundraising for a cause, and not everyone in the club had someone close to them have cancer. But when someone we all know has it, it's different."