Beyond the treatment

Janet Acosta didn't know she needed different shampoo.

There were considerably bigger things to worry about after she was diagnosed with breast cancer — doctors, chemotherapy, hospitals and the frightening uncertainty of what came next. Shampoo wasn't high on the list, until the shampoo she had always used suddenly felt like fire against her scalp.

Her skin became dry and scaly. Her hair disappeared. Her body changed in ways no treatment schedule could completely prepare her for.

Then came a basket from Cancer Warriors. Inside were some of the things Acosta hadn't known she would need, including special shampoo and samples of products that might make treatment a little easier. There was also a diary filled with thoughts from other cancer survivors.

And the basket wasn't the end of it. Women called. They texted. They checked on her.

“They traveled this journey with me,” Acosta said. “They didn't leave me. They didn't abandon me.”

Cancer Warriors was founded in 2023 by Marci Dickerson following her own successful fight against breast cancer, along with Laura Pierce, Julie Gustafson, Roberta Flores and Kacee Benford. Its mission is to raise money, spread awareness and provide resources for people navigating cancer, with an emphasis on breast cancer and other women's cancers in the community.

The organization's annual Cancer Warriors Week provides the events that help fund that work.

Those resources arrived during a year in which Acosta learned that fighting cancer involved considerably more than treating a disease.

It began on a drive to Silver City. Acosta, who grew up in Silver City and has lived in Las Cruces since about 2006, was headed there for a baseball game in May 2025 when she felt a sudden, sharp pain in her breast.

“It was almost like an ice pick,” she said.

She grabbed her breast and told the friend traveling with her that it hurt but didn't think much more about it. They went to the game. Later that night, while taking a shower at the hotel, she felt something. A lump.

It was Saturday. By Monday, she was at her doctor's office. By Wednesday, she had a mammogram. By Friday, she was seeing a surgeon. The diagnosis was breast cancer.

Cancer wasn't unfamiliar to Acosta's family. Her father had undergone cancer treatment the previous year. Her mother had battled cancer years earlier, at a time when treatment options were much more limited. Now it was Janet.

She began chemotherapy in June 2025, and over the next several weeks treatment took a significant toll. She struggled to stay hydrated and required additional medical care as her body responded.

She remembers the period around the Fourth of July particularly clearly.

“I about died,” she said.

But cancer wasn't happening only to Acosta's body. At home was her 19-year-old son, Connor, a college student working toward his bachelor's degree. As he watched his mother go through treatment, he offered to put school aside.

“Mom, I can stop going to school and stay with you and take care of you,” Acosta remembers him telling her.

She wouldn't let him. Mother and son sat together crying, and Acosta asked Connor for a pledge.

“You have to promise me one thing,” she told him. “I don't know what's going to happen.” Whatever happened to her, she told him, he needed to graduate. He needed to maintain his grades and stay focused on the future they had envisioned for him. Then she asked him to look her in the eye.

“Pinky promise me,” she said, “and tell me that you're going to stay on that journey and you're going to make me proud no matter what's going to happen.”

There was something else she needed him to understand.

“If I'm not here, that will be my biggest joy, to see you graduate and get your bachelor's degree.”

Connor had a different idea about how the story was going to end.

“You're going to be here for me no matter what,” he told her.

Still, he made the promise.

In August, Acosta transferred her treatment to Memorial Medical Center, where she found the resources she needed to continue her cancer care close to home. She easily remembers the date, Aug. 7, the day she began treatment there.

Acosta was assigned a nurse, Christina, who knew her case inside and out. Her treatment included additional layers of review, including pharmacy oversight, and she had access to the infusion and hydration care she needed.

But some of the things she remembers most were considerably simpler. A warm blanket. Someone checking on her regularly. A nurse asking whether she needed water or anything else.

“They really, really care,” Acosta said. “They are passionate about what they do.”

Having that level of care available in Las Cruces mattered to Acosta. People had encouraged her to consider treatment at Mayo Clinic in Phoenix. But receiving treatment hundreds of miles from home wasn't a simple option. Acosta is a single mother, her parents are older and she didn't have someone who could routinely travel with her, drive her home after treatment and then care for her there.

“I don't want to say it's a luxury, but I don't have that,” she said.

The cancer care she needed was available in her hometown. And as the medical team at Memorial treated the cancer, Cancer Warriors helped Acosta navigate everything that came with it. There were the products and information, but there was also something harder to put into a basket.

There were people who understood. Someone can love a person with cancer deeply and still not fully understand what treatment feels like, Acosta said. Cancer Warriors connected her with people who had lived through it themselves.

“We will pray with you,” she said. “We will cry with you. We will inspire you. We will walk that journey with you.”

That kind of support was particularly important for someone accustomed to being on the other end of the equation. Acosta describes herself as someone who would give a stranger the jacket off her back. Asking someone else for assistance was different.

“I was one of those that wouldn't ask for help,” she said. “Ever.”

Even when treatment had left her visibly sick, people would ask how she was doing.

“I'm doing great,” she would tell them.

She wasn't. Cancer Warriors kept checking anyway.

That experience is part of what Acosta now hopes others understand about the organization. Support isn't limited to people without families or friends. A cancer patient can have parents, children, a spouse or others who love them and still need someone who understands the experience firsthand.

“Get the support you need,” she said. “Whether you're alone or you have family or you have a spouse or a boyfriend or a significant other, whatever that looks like, just continue reaching out.”

Meanwhile, Connor kept his promise. He carried as many as 18 credit hours a semester and graduated with his bachelor's degree in May at 19. He turned 20 in August and is now pursuing a master's degree in psychology at New Mexico State University. His mother was there to see him graduate.

Then, on Aug. 20, a little more than a year after the drive to Silver City that changed her life, Acosta reached another milestone. She rang the bell marking the end of her cancer treatment.

Her thoughts quickly turned toward what came next. “How do I give back?” she remembers asking herself.

For Acosta, the answer leads back to the people who accompanied her through a year when she needed something she had never been particularly comfortable accepting — help.

It is why she wants more people facing cancer in Las Cruces to know Cancer Warriors exists, and why the organization that supported her during treatment has become part of what she wants to do after it.

“I believe in Cancer Warriors,” she said.

She knows now what it means to need the basket, the phone call or the text from someone who understands. And she knows what it means when someone walks the journey with you.