By MATTHEW WEAVER

Capital Press

When Washington FFA executive director Jodi Monroe was diagnosed last October with breast cancer, she expected to miss out on quite a bit of the major activities involved with the program.

Her doctors instead told her not to expect to miss a day of work, making sure she got to attend the national convention in Indianapolis, Ind. Monroe would go straight from chemotherapy to trips to Washington, D.C. or Indianapolis.

"I didn't know people that have cancer going through treatment could do that, I thought you had to stay home," she said.

Monroe recently finished five months of chemotherapy and will begin radiation after the convention. More treatments and surgeries are scheduled, she said.

Monroe said cancer does not run in her family, and said she is not profiled as a typical cancer patient due to being a health and exercise enthusiast. One in eight women are diagnosed with cancer, she said, and 80 percent of them don't have a family history of cancer.

"I went and had mammograms for years, so I'm not a woman that didn't pay attention to my body," she said.

But Monroe said she is embracing her diagnosis and makes a point of sharing information about it.

"If the next person can gain just a smidgen of information from me that will help them, their mother or sister, why the heck not?" she said.