DURHAM, N.C. -- A Wake County mother, battling stage four metastatic breast cancer, is honored for her work as an advocate.

Rhonda Howell received the Maureen Thomas Jordan Spirit of Survivorship/Thrivership Award during Susan G. Komen's Finding Solutions research luncheon. It's given in memory of Maureen Thomas Jordan, a breast cancer survivor/thriver in the Triangle area who exemplifies the spirit of survivorship/thrivership.

We first introduced you to Rhonda in October, when we shared her story of raising awareness and funds for metastatic breast cancer. The Wake Forest native beat early stage breast cancer in 2013, but it returned in 2015 as stage four. 

Every year 40,000 women and men die from this disease.

Dr. George Sledge, the Chief Scientific Adviser of the Komen Scientific Advisory Board, gave the keynote address during the luncheon.

"Because we've been able to identify breast cancer as a series of different families, not a single disease, but several different diseases, we're able to isolate those diseases, identify what's thriving them and develop new therapies that are specific for each of them," explained Dr. Sledge.

"We definitely have a long ways to go, but we've made a ton of progress in the last 20, 30 years," said Rhonda. "We've come up with a lot of targeted treatment options that are less toxic and more tolerable, so that's really encouraging. But we still have a ways to go."

Rhonda also co-hosted the first ever Triangle Metsquerade with her husband. They raised more than $100,000 for Metavivor, which gives 100 percent of donations and proceeds to stage four research.

For more information about the 2019 Triangle Metsquerade, click here.