Breast cancer.

Big brother Edward had just turned 2.

And their mommy was fighting for her life.

“I held up pretty well on the phone (with the doctor),” Leigh Julian says. “But when I hung up, I lost it.”

Now, four months later, 31-year-old Julian has undergone a mastectomy and is about halfway through her chemotherapy regimen. The hardest part hasn’t been losing a breast, the nausea or the fatigue, she says. It’s been leaving her boys with someone every time she has to make the 90-minute round trip to Concord for treatment.

That will change in October when Julian starts radiation therapy. Instead of fighting traffic for an hour and a half and leaving the children with a sitter, she’ll drive just down the road to Stanly Memorial Hospital’s new cancer center, which will be dedicated at 2 p.m. Sunday.

“The biggest thing will be convenience,” Julian says. “I won’t have to leave the boys with caretakers. I can drop off Edward at preschool and go there and have my treatment. I can take the baby with me.”

The Roy M. Hinson Cancer Center, named for Stanly Memorial’s president and CEO, will begin treating patients in July. But people may tour the $3.9 million facility Sunday after the dedication and ribbon cutting.

The center, located at 945 N. Fifth St., on the site of the old Nurses’ Residence Hall, meets a growing demand for local radiation therapy.

“In the past, they were going to Concord, Charlotte, even Baptist (in Winston-Salem),” said Ben Jolly, hospital community relations manager. “It’s going to be a much-needed convenience to cancer patients who have had to deal with travel time and time away from work. It’s much closer to home and closer to family and friends.”

The 6,500-square-foot center will treat patients from Stanly, Montgomery and Anson counties.

Dr. John Konefal and Dr. Steven Plunkett will lead the radiation oncology program with help from radiation therapist Judy Fenton-Ray and her staff. The physicians belong to Southeast Radiation Oncology, the largest radiation oncology practice in the Southeast, Jolly said.

Radiation therapy will be delivered by the linear accelerator, which is encased in a room with concrete walls, floors and ceilings measuring 7 feet thick, Jolly said. The door to the room, made from steel and lead, weighs 2 tons.

A stained glass design in the linear accelerator room will serve as a focal point for patients during treatment, Jolly said. It was donated by the Stanly Memorial Hospital Foundation Forum, which also provided funding for a meditation garden on the south side of the center.

Leigh Julian will undergo radiation five days a week for six or seven weeks.

“They say everything will be fine after that,” she says. “But it will be five to seven years before Iget a clean bill of health.”

Initially, doctors thought the lump in her breast was benign, Julian says. She opted to have it removed, just in case.

“They took it out and found it cancerous,” she says. “It was quite a shock.”

Since her diagnosis, family and friends have prepared meals every day. Her parents in Norwood and her in-laws in Albemarle have cared for the children while she was in bed, sometimes for up to a week.

Her sister-in-law from Raleigh comes and stays for a week at a time. And Julian’s husband, Eddie, provides the strength she’s needed to fight this battle.