MEET CHRISTY
Christy Sheehan’s youngest son had just left for college and she was starting to confront the daunting prospect of the empty nest. She still had her career—a demanding job as a special education teacher. And she had dreams: See her sons graduate, marry and start their own families; and she wanted to travel with her husband. But the details were still taking shape. That’s when, at the end of her first day of a new school year, her doctor called and asked if it was a good time to talk. Christy had given little thought to the routine mammogram and follow-up biopsy she had the previous week, figuring it was probably nothing. Now, her doctor was in her ear with this: “Your biopsy came back positive for breast cancer.” She was stunned. A neighbor encouraged her to call her son-in-law, Milan Radovich, PhD, a breast cancer researcher at the Vera Bradley Foundation Center for Breast Cancer Research. Radovich quickly connected Christy with Bryan Schneider, MD, who would shepherd Christy for the next year as she fought Triple Negative Breast Cancer. With help from her family, Christy tried to make the best of it. Rather than watch her hair fall out, she staged a haircutting party. It ended with her husband, father and stepmother all leaving with shiny domes, too. In the end, Christy’s treatment was successful. More than a year removed from it, she remains cancer free and grateful. Now over a year after treatment, her new dream is for researchers to find a way to prevent breast cancer. She wants to spare others the harsh therapies. But she still has one problem to overcome: Coping with that empty nest.