Story from TamikaFelder.com

"Vivacious, sweet and energetic:" is a good way to describe Tamika L. Felder.

This impressive young woman has a natural ability to captivate nearly everyone she meets, both individuals and large audiences.

Born and raised in Summerville, South Carolina, she grew up in an affectionate family within a tight knit community. It was a life full of Southern charms, until a great tragedy entered her world.

The day before Tamika’s 17th birthday, her beloved father died following a battle with colon cancer. Tamika was devastated. Her father had been her best friend and confidant. She was to become a High School senior that next semester, something they both had looked forward to for so long. It was an extremely difficult time, but picking up and rebuilding the shattered pieces of her life was the only option.

After graduating from college, Tamika made the hard decision to leave home, pack up her dreams and her bags and move to Washington, DC to begin work as a Television Producer.

That decision soon paid off. Tamika’s engaging personality and determination landed her in a number of successful positions within the television industry.

In May, 2000, at the age of twenty-five, Tamika was diagnosed with advanced Cervical Cancer. Devastated by this grim prognosis, her world began to fall apart -- for the second time. She had long dreamed, as most young women do, of one day marrying and having children of her own. But now she was told by her doctor that she would have to undergo a Radical Hysterectomy for advanced Cervical Cancer -- immediately. Emotionally drained by the realization that she would  never be able to bear children, Tamika gathered her strength to face another painful decision -- to have her womb surgically removed in order to save her life.

Tamika had to learn more about the facts of her condition, and to coax herself to get it "together". That period would produce the most demoralizing, yet triumphant moments in Tamika’s life. Day by day, as she became more determined to seize control of her life, the options became clearer. One option meant freezing her eggs in order to maintain the ability to reproduce in the future with the help of a surrogate uterus. But that was something she would have to do before she started chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Unfortunately, with all the complicated and costly medical expenses from the cancer treatment, Tamika was unable to afford this procedure, even though she had made strenuous efforts to raise money. Not only was she unable to meet the one month fund-raising deadline criteria, but the insurance company would not consider this procedure necessary.

This early defeat soon gave way to Tamika’s present triumph: she has been declared cancer-free at the moment. A very thankful Tamika feels it is her purpose in life to educate as many women--especially young women who feel immune to the problem-- about the devastating threat of Cervical and other Gynecological Cancers as possible. She has pushed writers, producers, and celebrities to help her educate women: "I don’t want this to happen to another person who is able to prevent it," she says.

Tamika is currently producing an Awareness campaign that includes a documentary film, "Beautiful Women: The Young Faces of Cancer". Her story was also featured in the June, 2003 issue of Essence Magazine. 

You may see Tamika anywhere from a celebrity social event to a college auditorium to rallying the troops in the grocery line. She travels the country on her mission, and she may be speaking at an event in your city very soon.