Hopkins County Breast Cancer Support Group Meets for an Uplifting Fellowship
April 15, 2026 – Sulphur Springs, Texas – The April meeting of the Hopkins County Breast Cancer
Support Group was a night full of encouragement and fellowship with guest speaker Emily Faircloth.
Faircloth is a counselor at Sulphur Springs High School and gave a presentation about
mindfulness and reframing. “God gave us the gift of a mind that sets us apart from other species,” Faircloth began. “We get to tell our brains to calm down and reclaim our thoughts, which builds new neural pathways and resilience.”
As a survivor of both melanoma and breast cancer, Emily gracefully wove her personal testimony throughout her presentation. “I was pregnant with our first child when I was diagnosed with melanoma,” Faircloth shared. “Treatment protocols were scarier with the added worry of harming our son in utero or causing him to be born prematurely. God gave us faith during the process, and our son was born happy and healthy, fully baked at nearly two weeks late!”
Faircloth shared tools that she uses with her students and in her personal life to stay grounded in the present, instead of worrying about the future. “Deep breathing, mentally naming colors you see in the room, counting something like ceiling tiles, or anchoring yourself to the here and now using all five of your senses can be helpful,” Faircloth said.
“The more senses you can employ in a mindfulness technique, the more effective it is.” The language used in self-talk was another highlighted subject. “Add ‘get’ and ‘yet’ to your daily vocabulary,” Faircloth said. “Instead of ‘I can’t do this activity I love anymore,’ say ‘I can’t do this activity yet.’ Instead of saying ‘I have to complete this task,’ say, ‘I get to do this task to help my healing.’ Since having cancer, I know I live better, laugh better, and love better, because I get the opportunity to.”
Meetings, sponsored by the Hopkins County Health Care Foundation, are held at 5:30 p.m. on the second Monday of every month in the Medical Plaza, 113 Airport Rd. Women who have or have had any type of cancer are welcome. For more information, contact the Hopkins County Health Care Foundation at 903-438-4799 or [email protected].
Photo 1: Bobbie Malone, Emily Faircloth, and Renee Maeker chat by the refreshments after April’s cancer support group meeting. Faircloth, a cancer survivor and high school counselor, was the guest speaker. She shared her story and spoke about the power of mindfulness. Meetings are hosted by the Foundation on the second Monday of every month at 5:30 pm in the Medical Plaza, 113 Airport Rd.
