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SEVEN MILE — This Mother's Day, a Seven Mile nurse will have a very proud daughter and mother helping her celebrate a milestone.

After 37 years of constant setbacks, health concerns and general life frustrations, Terri Sweeney will graduate from Miami University's Hamilton campus today, May 11, as a registered nurse.

When she was 19 years old, Sweeney was in an automobile accident that kept her in and out of surgery for the next 15 years — and still occasionally feeling the pain. Then 12 years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and endured chemotherapy and a double mastectomy.

"Most women would have given up a long time ago, but she kept going," said her mother, Juanita Mayes. "For her to have become so strong is really good."

"She's my hero," said Sweeney's daughter Lisa Back. "I've always said when I was little that I wanted to be just like my mom."

So even though Back doesn't think she has the right stuff for nursing, she still pursued the medical field and works second shift registering emergency room patients at Mercy Hospital in Fairfield.

"Pretty much everything I've learned, I've learned from my mom," she said.

Mayes believes that her daughter's story is an inspiring one and hopes that other women will heed the lessons she's learned.

"She's exceptionally brave and has always been encouraging to other women," she said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

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