In 1990, 45-year-old Alice “Cookie” Bailey had never met anyone who had suffered from breast cancer.

So, when she found a visible lump on her breast during a family vacation, she didn’t think much of it.

“I thought it was a clogged duct or something,” the now 72-year-old Edwardsburg resident said. “I had no thoughts it was going to be cancer.”

In spite of this, she planned a doctor visit immediately upon her return from vacation to get the lump checked. When her doctor sat her down and told her that he was 98 percent sure her lump was cancerous, Bailey said she was shocked.

“I had no precursors of someone who you might think would develop breast cancer,” she said. “It was very surprising.”

After a lumpectomy, six rounds of chemo and 30 radiation treatments over a seven-month period, Bailey was declared cancer free. She has stayed that way for the past 27 years.

During that time, Bailey found a way to share her story with other women to educate them about the importance of preventative measures and to encourage women dealing with breast cancer in the mid to late ‘90s.

“Back then, [breast cancer] really wasn’t as common, so a lot of women who were dealing with it didn’t know where to go. They need to hear a story like mine,” she said. “But now you’d be hard pressed to walk into a room of women and not have half them affected by breast cancer in some way. Maybe not them, but someone in their family.”

Though she didn’t know anyone with breast cancer when she was first diagnosed, that would soon change for Bailey as her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992 and her mother was diagnosed with the disease in 1995. All three went on to become breast cancer survivors.

After these events, Bailey teamed up with her sister, who remains a vocal breast cancer awareness advocate, to give talks to women who were going through what they had gone through. Bailey and her sister gave several of these talks over the course of a few years, starting in 1995.

The focus of the presentations Bailey and her sister gave focused on a list of “20 tips to get you through cancer treatments,” that the duo had come up with.

“We came up with these just between the two of us and what we have gone through ourselves,” Bailey said. “These are really the things that were important to us as we went through breast cancer and the ways we found that we handled it the best.”

The list contains tips for dealing with breast cancer that range from practical, physical advice, like taking vitamins, keeping a list of blood test results and reading up on the latest medical techniques, to more abstract and personal advice, such as being kind to nurses, writing letters to your friends and eating as much as you want of your favorite food.

Though her list was written more than two decades ago, Bailey believes that her tips can still be relevant to women who are suffering from breast cancer today.

“I was looking at [the 20 tips] today, and if I had to do it again, I don’t think I’d change anything,” she said. “I mean I’m sure a lot has changed in terms of treatments, but [the tips] don’t really have anything to do with that. This has to do with how someone handles this situation personally.”

For Bailey, the piece of advice that got her through her breast cancer the most was “keep a positive attitude.”

“Let me tell you what,” Bailey said. “I always knew I would be a breast cancer survivor. From the moment I was diagnosed, I knew. There was no doubt in my mind that I would survive.”

Bailey said that her positive attitude not only got her through her own breast cancer and treatments, but her mother’s and sister’s as well, telling them both that she knew they would live and not be victims.

“I had to brace myself up for what was happening,” Bailey said. “A lot [of what I went through] was sad or shocking, but I wouldn’t have gotten through if I didn’t stay positive and know that I was going to come out of this.”

Her positivity carried Bailey through her cancer until she was declared cancer-free, a moment she still remembers as “wonderful.”

Though many years have passed since that moment and she stopped giving public talks on breast cancer long ago, Bailey still has some advice to dole out to the women of today.

“Be faithful to your mammograms, and if you think there might be an issue, go see your doctor. Don’t just hope something is going to go away,” she said. “If you are going through breast cancer, you are in for the fight of your life. You need to recognize that, do what you need to do to deal with that and make sure that you go on with the rest of your life.”