OCEAN CITY — “My life in advocacy is all my different shirts,” Jeanmarie Mason said, pointing toward a pile of colored tops decorated with various logos.
Mason’s advocacy work for metastatic breast cancer is of paramount importance to her. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014. Seven years later, she was experiencing pain in her leg that progressed to a point at which she was limping.
After the pain was originally diagnosed as a back problem, a local neurosurgeon advised her to immediately go to the emergency room for testing. It was there that she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, which had spread to her femur.
At Cooper University Hospital, the Ocean City resident got a partial hip replacement and a cementoplasty —Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) bone cement injected into the osteolytic area of the damaged bone. For two years, Mason has been NED, or “no evidence of disease,” which she attributed to the “great medical intervention and support from Shore Cancer Center.”
A career educator, Mason is a trained advocate for Living Beyond Breast Cancer for awareness, research and funding of metastatic breast cancer. Only 5 percent of research is dedicated to metastatic breast cancer even though one in three women with breast cancer will become metastatic.
At the annual Making Strides Walk of OCNJ, Mason noticed that even though the event had a large turnout, everyone in attendance was wearing pink. While the pink ribbon is the universal symbol of the early stages of breast cancer, it is not exclusive of metastatic, or stage IV, breast cancer. Metastatic breast cancer ribbon colors are pink, teal and green.
“Thirty percent of these women walking around in pink tutus are going to develop metastatic breast cancer and they need to know what to do,” she told the American Cancer Society committee.
Mason’s main method of advocacy is through education, to which she is no stranger.
As a 14-year-old, Mason guided her parents through their educational quests. Her parents struggled to make ends meet and when Mason was in high school, her father decided he wanted to get his diploma. She helped him study.
Her mother, who had a license for hairstyling, decided to become a manicurist. Mason took to a blackboard to teach her mother the information she would need to pass the test for a manicurist license.
She got her undergraduate degree at West Chester University, her master’s degree at Penn State University and her doctorate at Immaculata University.
“I spent my career as a teacher and special education administrator. The bulk of my time was in special education administration and working with teachers, parents and students who had disabilities. At the same time, I was teaching in higher education through Gwynedd Mercy University, Saint Joseph’s University and Rowan University,” Mason said.
She teaches graduate courses in special education law, inclusive practices, teaches courses on students with disabilities and works as a dissertation adviser at Rowan University and Saint Joseph’s University.
She said her focus has been “helping teachers and teacher leaders to become proficient in their craft with evidence-based practice, like the latest evidence on working with students with disabilities.”
Mason worked as a public education advocate throughout her career. She attends local school board meetings, works as a higher education adjunct professor and a film coordinator in the American Association for University Women.
“I am taking my voice and my advocacy, in a positive and professional way, to open up the eyes of diversion, inclusion and equity,” she said.
The biggest advocacy work that she does for public education is through the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI Atlantic Cape May) — a nonprofit organization she has been with for more than 20 years.
A former affiliate president and treasurer, and current board member, she advocates for resources, support, education and advocacy. She is trained as a family support facilitator and a teacher for the NAMI family-to-family educational program. The free eight-session program is for family, significant others and friends of people suffering mental health conditions.
“It’s a passion of mine. I want to pay it forward … one in five people suffer from mental illness, and people don’t know where to turn to. Having the background and the support was a way to let people know that there’s hope,” Mason said, noting the end goal is to reduce the stigma around mental illness.
Mason is a political advocate, especially for women. She is the secretary of the South Jersey Democratic Women’s Forum.
The organization supports female Democratic candidates in Atlantic and Cape May counties. Mason is also a community board member for Cape Mediation, coordinator for Family Promise, member of the Staff/Pastor-Parish Relations Committee and president of the Atlantic County and Cape May County missions of United Women in Faith.
Her unwavering advocacy is supported by “reading and educating and knowing the facts from opinion,” she said.
Evidence-based practices and medical research support her work with NAMI and metastatic breast cancer.
By JOELLE CARR/For the Sentinel