Susan Beauregard was a new mother when first stricken with the disease
At eight months pregnant, Susan Beauregard of Cleveland was nearing a life-changing experience as a soon-to-be mom in 2002.
It was also the same time that she found a lump on her breast.
“I was well below the recommended age of getting a mammogram,” Beauregard says, adding that she had planned to start getting the exam once she reached that mark at age 40.
She received a formal breast cancer diagnosis after her daughter, Summer, was born.
“I was worried she was never going to know me,” Beauregard says. “It was the saddest part of it.”
Determined to be around for her new baby, Beauregard pushed forward into having the lump removed and a treatment regimen of chemotherapy and radiation. Even as she lost her hair, she tried to keep in good spirits.
“I always had curly hair, so I got a straight-hair wig,” Beauregard says with a slight smile. “Even when I was going through cancer, I tried to put a little humor in it every now and then.”
She ultimately won her battle with the disease, but breast cancer cells returned in 2004. This time, she opted for breast reconstruction and underwent new rounds of chemotherapy.
Beauregard says the adversity strengthened her faith.
“Going through all this brought me closer to God. I started going to church and I got in the choir,” she says. “I just thank God for letting me be in my daughter’s life.”
Since then, Summer has donated locks of her hair in her mother’s honor twice to charities that provide wigs for those who have lost their own hair due to medical conditions.
As a two-time breast cancer survivor, Beauregard recommends women get screened before age 40 if they can. She understands there are many others like her with their own experiences.
“Every time that I would mention [having had breast cancer] to somebody, they had stories about someone very close to them, too,” she says. “It’s something that’s so common.”