Every person's experience with breast cancer is unique. There's no script, no "right" way to get through it, and no two stories that look the same. This October, for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we asked friends of Find Her Compass to share theirs, in their own words.
We're sharing these stories because the pink ribbons only tell you so much. The real stuff - the messy, funny, scary, human parts - comes from the women who've lived it.
From La Shawn R Stanton, Founder, Renew Her Studio
I didn’t set out to start a breast cancer company.
For more than twenty years, my work focused on people. As a Chief People Officer, I helped make decisions about benefits, healthcare, and the resources employees could turn to when life happened. I understood those decisions carried real consequences for someone’s family, health, and livelihood.
Then life happened to me.
On April 15, 2024 at 1:56 in the afternoon, I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma. Breast cancer became personal in a way no benefits presentation or awareness campaign could have prepared me for. I was the woman receiving the diagnosis, considering what came next. And in the days that followed, I found myself doing the thing my career had trained me to do: reading my own coverage, trying to understand what it would actually do for me. I was the woman I had spent twenty years making decisions on behalf of.
That July, I had a single mastectomy, followed by reconstruction 16 months later. I was fortunate that I did not need chemotherapy or radiation. I am grateful for that, and for the care I received. My recovery still required more of me than I had understood before becoming the patient.
We tend to talk about breast cancer through its major medical moments: diagnosis, surgery, treatment. Those moments absolutely deserve our attention. There is also the daily experience of living through them and finding your way afterward. That is where I began to see how much support a woman can need beyond her medical care.
Comfort becomes a practical concern. Getting dressed can raise new questions. You are learning what works for your body now, looking for products that meet your needs and trying to make sense of an experience you never asked to have.
And underneath those practical needs is something harder to put into words: the work of feeling at home in yourself again.
I am grateful for my outcome, and I am still healing. Some of that healing is physical. Some is the ongoing work of processing what happened and feeling at home in my body again. I can be strong and still need support. Gratitude does not require me to pretend recovery is easy or that it is finished.
That is something I want more women to hear.
You do not have to earn care by having the most difficult story in the room. Your experience matters. The surgery you had, the treatment you needed or did not need, the questions you are still carrying: all of it deserves room.
As I moved through my own recovery, I kept thinking about what I had needed and what I wanted another woman to be able to find more easily. My professional life had taught me to pay attention to gaps in how people are supported. My personal experience gave that work a new purpose.
Somewhere along the way, the question became: What would it look like to create a place for this part of a woman’s life?
That question became Renew Her Studio™.
I built this because it did not exist in the way I needed it when I needed it.
Renew Her Studio is a breast cancer recovery and survivorship company, shaped by my experience and my belief that women deserve thoughtful support throughout recovery and beyond. I am building it around three words: Recover. Renew. Connect.
Recover means paying attention to the everyday needs that can become so important after surgery. Renew means making room for the woman you are becoming, at your own pace. Connect means having people with whom you can ask questions, share honestly and feel understood.
I want those words to show up in what we offer and how women feel when they encounter us. A thoughtfully chosen recovery product can make a day more comfortable. A conversation can help a woman feel less alone. Space to reflect can help her name something she has been carrying quietly.
My faith continues to steady me through this healing. It also helped shape the Becoming Renewed Healing Companion, which I created from my own recovery experience. Through reflection, encouragement and faith, it offers space for a woman to acknowledge where she is and what she needs along the way.
“To whom much is given, much is required” has long guided my life. Today, that conviction is part of why I am sharing my story and building something from it.
The Becoming Renewed butterfly holds meaning for me, too. It represents becoming. I am giving myself permission to grow into who I am now, with everything this experience has taught me. The affirmation I carry into this chapter speaks to that ongoing journey:
I am healing. I am strong. I am becoming renewed.
Those words leave room for where I am today and who I am still becoming.
This October, I hope we make more room for these conversations. Ask the woman in your life how she is doing, and give her time to answer. Keep checking in after surgery and after the first wave of concern has passed. Let her tell you what support looks like for her.
And if you are that woman, you deserve that same attention. You are allowed to ask for help, to take your time, and to have a recovery story that looks different from someone else’s.
Pink may be the color that gets our attention every October. My hope is that Renew Her Studio helps us remember the woman wearing it long after October is over.
La Shawn R. Stanton is a people executive and certified executive coach. Diagnosed in April 2024, she underwent a single mastectomy followed by reconstruction, one of many different paths women walk through this disease, and the one that shaped everything she's built since.
That experience revealed needs that can exist beyond excellent medical care: emotional, practical, deeply personal. It led her to found Renew Her Studio, an emerging recovery and wellness brand where women can feel supported, seen, and whole as they recover, renew, and reconnect. She's also the author of the Becoming Renewed Healing Companion, a guided resource for reflection, affirmation, and healing.
With more than 20 years of executive leadership experience, La Shawn has built her career around people, transformation, and service. She's guided by the belief that "to whom much is given, much is required," and sees survivorship as both a gift and a responsibility.
Outside of her work, she finds joy in traveling, reading, walking Chicago's lakefront, and time with family and friends. Her personal affirmation: "I am healing. I am strong. I am becoming renewed."
