These 5 Survivors Beat Breast Cancer Like A Boss

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Vanessa Bell Calloway

Vanessa Bell Calloway found that she was diagnosed with breast cancer during stage zero. In an essay, she shared her experience being diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ at 52. This form of cancer occurs when abnormal cells in the milk ducts have not fallen out into the tissue to invade the rest of the breast. Even though it was stage zero, Calloway still had to undergo two lumpectomy procedures, a mastectomy and a reconstructive procedure for her breast.

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Wanda Sykes

Like Calloway, Sykes was also diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ in her left breast before. During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, she shared that she found out when she was preparing to have breast reduction surgery. She explained that since there is a history of cancer in her family, she decided to have a double mastectomy to lower the chances of her ever having breast cancer again.

“I had both breasts removed … because now I have zero chance of having breast cancer,” she told DeGeneres.  “It sounds scary up front, but what do you want? Do you want to wait and not be as fortunate when it comes back and it’s too late?”

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Ananda Lewis

In 2020, Ananda Lewis revealed that she was battling stage three breast cancer. While she is thriving, she revealed the news via Instagram and shared that she learned about her diagnosis later because she refused mammograms.

“If I had done the mammograms from the time they were recommended, when I turned 40, they would have caught the tumor in my breast years before I caught it through my own breast exam—self exam—and thermography,” Lewis said. “And they would have caught it at a place where it was more manageable — where the treatment of it would have been a little easier. It’s never easier, but I use that word in comparison to what I’m going through now. Instead, what I’m dealing with is stage three breast cancer that is in my lymphs. I need you to get your mammograms.”

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Bershan Shaw

Real Housewives of New York star Bershan Shaw beat cancer not once but twice. She was first diagnosed with stage one breast cancer in 2007 and then again in 2009. But the second time around, it was stage four cancer. She won the battle once again and has now been in remission for 13 years. She also became a breast cancer awareness advocate.

“I started this community because women suffer in silence,” Shaw told HuffPost about her website for survivors, URAWarrior.com. “My ultimate goal with URAWarrior.com is really to help women around the globe… we always feel like we’re alone in our issues and I want it to be a place where it can empower us.”

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Robin Roberts

Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts was diagnosed with breast cancer in July of 2007. Shortly after finding outs he shared the news in a statement via Good Morning America.

“That very night when I went to bed, I did a self breast exam and found something that women everywhere fear: I found a lump,” she wrote. “At first I thought, ‘This can’t be. I am a young, healthy woman.’ Nevertheless, I faced my fear head on and made an appointment to see the doctor. Much as I was hoping the doctor would say it was nothing, she did a biopsy and confirmed that the lump I’d found was indeed an early form of breast cancer.”

She later went through chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery over a course of six weeks.

She also beat bone marrow myelodysplastic syndrome, a type of cancer that her doctors believe was caused by the chemotherapy she received when fighting breast cancer.