Morning Express with Robin Meade

Being persistent may have saved Tracie Metzger’s life.  At 30 years old, she found a lump in her breast after her daughter Grace suddenly stopped nursing. 

“It felt exactly the same as a lump that I had had about seven years earlier that was called a fibroadenoma, which is like a fatty little tumor,” she says.  But Tracie wasn’t alarmed because those tumors are common and benign. "It's not like I thought it was breast cancer, I have no family history of breast cancer," she explains.  “It was more just something inside of me as a mom, as a woman, saying I have a lump in my breast, you know, I need to get this checked out.”

Three weeks into her deployment, Melissa Stockwell was part of a routine convoy going through central Baghdad.  “We started out the gate and about 10 minutes into the ride we went under this bridge and this big boom, this big explosion went off, “she recalls.  “Think of the loudest noise you can imagine and our vehicle starts to swerve. The woman in the front yells IED, IED, we've hit an IED!”

Melissa’s left leg was gone.  “It sounds strange, but as soon as I was told I didn't have my leg, I knew it was going to be okay”, the U.S. Army veteran says.  “I just kind of had this almost peaceful feeling that, alright, it's going to be alright.  Life isn't over.”

Sol Kelley-Jones grew up in a loving home with two moms.  “I understood that my family was different, but that difference was celebrated,” she says.  But it wasn’t always easy.  “I understood from my first days of kindergarten the sting of homophobia and of prejudice,” the Wisconsin native remembers. “There really wasn’t room for my family on school forms or in the laws of our state.”

Sol refused to be silent.  At 10 years old, she testified about same-sex marriage in front of the Wisconsin legislature.  “A lot of times there can be these hard-held beliefs, but people really don’t know,” she explains.  “People don’t really know what a gay family looks like.  It can feel a lot scarier when you don’t see a young face, or you don’t see a family really full of lots of love that’s not that different from your own.  So I found that, through sharing my story, a lot of prejudice could be dispelled.” 

“Excruciating” is how Lori Guadagno describes the pain of losing her brother Richard on September 11, 2001. She was already planning to move to Florida from Vermont and start a hospital art program to help sick children when 9/11 left her “frozen in time.” Art with a Heart became her life raft. She says she could “relate so much to the pain and the anguish” of the families in the hospital.  “I knew it was something really big and really important,” Guadagno says, “and that it was going to save me.”

Art with a Heart volunteers help kids choose what kind of art they want to do, like painting, drawing, or photography. Sometimes volunteers simply create art for the kids’ hospital rooms. Guadagno says the purpose of Art with a Heart is bringing kids an “experience where they can feel normal again, where they feel they are not defined by their illness. They're defined by an artistic moment.”

Ami Gordon understands all too well the challenges families face when a pet becomes sick. The Texas lawyer says her young dog Daisy suddenly came down with a mysterious illness. The Yorkshire terrier began to suffer from seizures, eventually falling into a coma for several days.

Although not a religious person, Ami begged God to save her dog’s life. She says her prayers were answered as Daisy’s condition began to improve.  Although Daisy still faces many health challenges, her recovery inspired Ami to found DaisyCares, which provides free pet food and health care for needy pets.

For as long as she could remember, Abigail Hardin struggled with feeling beautiful.  She was born with a port-wine stain birthmark on her cheek that extended from her right temple down to her lip. 

“Even at 4 years old, I knew that I looked different,” she says. “Growing up, self-esteem was something I always wrestled because I didn't want to be the girl with the birthmark or just the birthmark on the girl.”

More than a decade ago while driving to Disney World, Beverly Kearney was badly injured in a car accident. Two of her friends died and Kearney was thrown more than 50 feet from the vehicle. She suffered a skull fracture and extensive spinal damage. After multiple surgeries, she was told by doctors that she would never walk again.

“When they told me I was paralyzed it went in one ear and out the next,” Kearney said. “I never doubted for one moment that I was going to walk.” 

Former Marine Angela Madsen says she lost nearly everything after a botched back surgery in 1993. Three weeks in the hospital became three months. She lost her job, her partner, even her house. "All I could see was a life of pain and suffering,” she says.

Her low point hit when the chief of spinal cord conditioning told her that her condition was a “waste of human life.”  She got mad, and motivated.

Amanda LaMunyon was diagnosed with a form of autism called Asperger's Syndrome when she was eight. Asperger's made it tough for her to communicate -- until she picked up a paintbrush.

According to her website, since she began painting Amanda has "emerged from an inward world to a world of giving and caring." She's become an activist, speaking and even singing to groups about her journey. 

Emily Schreiber, who was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at age nine, says as soon as she was diagnosed she knew she wanted to do something to help. Her first fundraiser was a swimming challenge. She asked friends and family to donate money for each lap she swam and raised $50,000 that first try!  

That event eventually became Laps for CF, Schreiber's organization that holds events like concerts, diving exhibitions and swim challenges to support people suffering from the lung disease. Since 2003, Laps for CF has raised over $2 million. That's what makes Schreiber a breakthrough woman.