JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jordan is just a few years out of high school. But this young man already knows he values his mother, and he's determined to stick by her side, as she finishes out her fight against breast cancer.
His mom, Angelina Boatwright, was always faithful to Buddy Check, thank goodness. She says "about 25 years ago I was watching you on the news and you were introducing the Buddy Check 12 packets, " she remembers. Her reference is to First Coast News and the Buddy Check project to encourage self-exams and mammograms.
She did self exams and found a lump which, she says, "felt like a nipple." It was pretty firm, she remembers. It was breast cancer and now, after 12 weeks of chemotherapy and radiation, Boatwright is feeling "great," she says.
"Buddy Check saved my life, actually," she says.
As for Jordan, he remembers the day the doctor called to tell his mother she had cancer. "She broke down in my arms, " Jordan say.
But she wound up tackling breast cancer with her typical vivacious personality, and she is thriving now, she says. She says Jordan was her rock all during treatment. "When I got off work, he'd come straight to me and hug me every day," she says.
Pretty awesome for a 23-year-old guy.