Shauna Wears Pink

I will never forget the day my doctor uttered those horrifying words “I am sorry to tell you, but that is a cancer tumor that you have in your left breast”. I was 33 years old, and my life changed forever. I invite you to read my story, learn from it and hopefully be inspired to reach out to other young women living with and beyond breast cancer.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Me and My Sis

Most of you already know the story, but just to recap, in August of 2005, at the age of 33, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. One month later, at the age of 31, my sister Tamara was also diagnosed with breast cancer. Most of you know the rest of the story of how we went through chemotherapy, double mastectomies and multiple reconstruction surgeries. Today, two and half years later, we are healthy and strong again and believe that we are truly cancer survivors! We have always been close as sisters, but the cancer experience has brought us even closer. Not only do we share the same DNA, now we share the same experience of knowing what it is like to come face to face with our mortality. Life for both of us is mostly back to normal, but there are always those moments when we realize that life will never be the same as it was before the cancer. We have been forever changed by this cancer experience. Some days I embrace that fact and make plans to help other cancer survivors with their battles. Other days I curse the cancer and curse the day that I learned exactly what takes place during a mastectomy and the pain that follows or the fact that a port had to be placed inside my chest because the chemotherapy drugs I received were so poisonous that my normal arm veins could not handle them. Today is a good day….and my sister and I have decided to help others in this great battle against cancer. In celebration of our own battle and triumph over breast cancer we plan to ride our bicycles together across the state of Iowa the last week in July as part of RAGBRAI and Team Livestrong. We are proud to help raise funds for cancer research and awareness so that others faced with this disease may also be survivors!! For those of you that follow my blog, I plan to try to do blog entries along the route so that you can keep up with our progress across the state of Iowa.

If you wish to donate to the cause click here to see my personal Livestrong page.

https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=259771&supid=127641041

If for some reason this link is not live, just cut and paste it into your internet browser.

Thank you for supporting the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Your contribution is greatly appreciated.

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