October 2025 archive

Niki’s West meals helped fuel Tonya Allen’s fight against breast cancer

*In America, one in eight women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer during their lifetime. In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I will be profiling one female breast cancer survivor each day in October 2025. The stories will also highlight a food from a Birmingham, AL restaurant or vendor they liked at some point during their breast cancer journey or today. The series is called “SurviveHer at the Table: Food. Faith. Fight.”

By Chanda Temple

Tonya Allen ran her hand across her right breast and couldn’t believe it. A small lump sat beneath her fingertips.

“This couldn’t be cancer,’’ she thought. “Not me!’’

But a later visit with the doctor and a 3-D mammogram confirmed she had an estrogen-positive cyst, which would rise in her breast when she was on her period and go down when she went off her period.

Denial was strong that January morning in 2020 as the doctor suggested an option: “You should have a lumpectomy.’’ But Tonya needed more information before making such a big decision.

Tonya Allen is employed by Birmingham City Schools and works with students with dyslexia. (Photo provided by Tonya Allen)
Tonya Allen is employed by Birmingham City Schools and works with students with dyslexia. (Photo provided by Tonya Allen)

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How one Birmingham breast cancer survivor reclaimed her taste and joy after chemo

*In America, one in eight women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer during their lifetime. In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I will be profiling one female breast cancer survivor each day in October 2025. The stories will also highlight a food from a Birmingham, AL restaurant or vendor they liked at some point during their breast cancer journey or today. The series is called “SurviveHer at the Table: Food. Faith. Fight.” The stories can be found on this blog under the tag SurviveHer in the search bar.

By Chanda Temple

Cancer treatments not only robbed Marie Sutton of her right breast and hair in 2018, they also robbed her of the ability to taste.

Some of her favorite flavors were now distant memories.

She could only admire the garlic butter brushed across the thick crust on her favorite spicy pizza.  

Her mother’s macaroni and cheese was pretty on a plate but foreign to her palate.

And the crunch of fried catfish was all she could appreciate because the filets simply tasted like sand.

Marie Sutton (Photo provided by Marie Sutton) Marie Sutton (Photo provided by Marie Sutton)
Marie Sutton is cancer-free after being diagnosed with cancer in January 2018, undergoing a mastectomy in September 2018 and having more than 30 lymph nodes removed. (Photo provided by Marie Sutton)

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