LEWISTON – It figures that Carlene Sperry’s fight would lead to a calendar.

Since her diagnosis of breast cancer on Jan. 20, 2003, the effort to eradicate the disease – starting with her own body – has been her passion.

“I endured eight rounds of chemotherapy,” Sperry said. She endured radiation treatments and early menopause. And she survived.

“The hair grows back and we go back to our lives again,” she said. Yet, each time she hears of another case, she feels anguish.

“Fighting this has become like getting up in the morning,” said Sperry, 47, of Auburn. She fights every day.

And she’s trying to broaden the daily fight.

With a friend, fellow survivor Claudette Caron of Lewiston, Sperry convinced Central Maine Medical Center to publish a calendar of survivors.

Each sale will raise money for the Sam and Jennie Bennett Breast Care Center at CMMC.

Along with month by month profiles – including Caron for April and Sperry for September – the calendar aims to be a reminder for people of the dangers of breast cancer, the need for regular exams and a place for a bit of optimism.

Pictured survivors include a woman on her motorcycle and another with her Broadway playbill. Nurse and two-time survivor Jill Tonoli is featured in her running suit and sneakers, appropriate because of her marathon fundraising walks. Caron’s portrait shows her with her license plate: “TIME4FUN.”

Sperry is portrayed with her two sons, Grant and Tyler, her daughter Marisa and her husband, Mitch.

“He really was my knight in shining armor,” Sperry said. And her kids motivated her to get better in the weeks and months following her diagnosis.

“I wanted to see my daughter graduate from high school,” she said. “That was part of my fuel.”

Sperry managed to see Marisa, now 21, graduate. Now her hope is to see all of her children grow up, marry and have children.

“I know that this disease touches lives,” she said. That’s why the anguish hits her every time she hears of another case.

“It rips the heart out of my chest,” she said.