*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.
