Jacqueline, a clever and crafty breast cancer survivor made this shirt -- pictured at right -- especially for the 2006 Susan G. Komen walk in Central Park. She didn't like the over-sized, over-advertised shirts passed out to the masses, so she designed her own. Notice the songbird stripe on the right side of the shirt? This seamstress renovated the piece to create visual balance for women who have lost a breast and wish to forgo mastectomy and prostheses.

Jacqueline, who has named her clothing line Rhea Belle, had a right-side mastectomy in January 2004. She knew she would leave her body as is, but her existing wardrobe didn't "fit" her new shape. When she realized she could either accept her changed architecture or camouflage it, she chose the former.

Photographs tell powerful stories. They depict people and objects and landscapes and emotions in deep, meaningful ways. They capture permanent visual representations of moments in life. They paint pictures that even the most well-crafted words could not reproduce.

When Mary Ann Nilan was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 at the age of 40, she knew her story must be told -- through pictures. So she asked a photographer to record it all, stating, "I hope the pictures make the road easier for other women." The rest is history.

She calls it a photo essay and titles it The Diary of Healing. For 17 frames -- with photographs dominating each space and text kept to a minimum -- Nilan shares her journey that began with the discovery of breast cancer in both breasts and several lymph nodes, the journey that took her through chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, and reconstruction with implants.

Her photographs document significant stops on her physical and emotional trek. They show her bald head, the wig she wore only once and then let hang on a hook, the scars that crossed her flat chest after surgery, an injection of saline that painfully pierced the skin of her new breasts, her children measuring her hair as it grows in after chemotherapy. The photographs are both hopeful and chilling. They are breast cancer. They are more than words could ever capture.