These days, Lawrence resident Julie Cowdin doesn’t worry as much about how clean her house is or whether the laundry is done. She’s more interested in spending time with her child, eating dinner with her husband and shopping with her mother.

“You figure out the things that are really important and the things that aren’t,” Julie said. In January 2005, Julie was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer. The American Cancer Society predicts 40,580 people will die from breast cancer this year in the United States alone. But Julie will not be one of those people. Thanks to extensive surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Julie is recovering from the disease.