A community gathering on June 10 voiced support for national adoption of renewed legislation that benefits cancer survivors decades after radiation exposure.
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz.—Maggie Billiman devoted her career to nursing and serving others, offering compassionate care to terminally ill patients during their final days.
It was a journey filled with empathy and understanding. At the end of each patient’s life, Billiman held their hand and said a prayer to ease their suffering.
There would come a time when she, too, would face the daunting prospect of a serious illness—one that she had spent so many years helping others confront.
Recent medical imaging has indicated the presence of abnormal cysts on her liver, pancreas, and thyroid, and it appears that they may be growing.
“After retiring, this is what happened to me,” said Billiman, 62, a member of the Navajo Nation in Arizona.
“My latest [issue] is my kidney. They did a scan and thought it was a kidney stone—it’s not,” Billiman said.
On June 10, at a daylight vigil in Window Rock, Arizona—the political heart of the Navajo Nation—Billiman wore a vibrant yellow T-shirt adorned with images of her beloved parents.
Both had lost their battles with cancer.
She worries that her past exposure to radiation from uranium mining and atomic bomb tests near Navajo lands during her childhood could lead to a cancer diagnosis.
The shadow of cancer has cast a long pall over her family for years. Her heart aches as she reflects on her father, Howard Billiman, Jr., a former U.S. Marine and Navajo Code Talker during World War II.
Her father worked in a uranium mine in Kingman, Arizona, and passed away from stomach cancer in 2001 at the age of 78.
Now, she watches her brother, Daniel Billiman, 65, struggle with liver, thyroid, and lung issues, likely caused by the radiation exposure that has affected their family for generations.
“The doctors said it’s all due to exposure,” Maggie Billiman told The Epoch Times. “I have it on record.”
By Allan Stein
