If the universal saying for being optimistic is having a glass half full, then Cara Campbell’s glass is overflowing. Even as a single mom raising two children in her early 20s, Cara always kept her mind on the positive things and didn’t dwell on the negatives. Raised by a supportive family, she brought up her children the same way. Cara taught them that no matter what happens in life, always be thankful for what you have.

But Cara had no idea that the same life lesson she was teaching her kids would test her when it showed up in the form of breast cancer.

At age 29, Cara woke up with her hand on her chest, an unusual thing for her. She felt a small lump on her breast but didn’t think anything of it and went back to sleep. When she woke up the following morning, she remembered feeling the lump and realized it was still there. “It wasn’t a dream; it was definitely something I’d never felt before,” she says. 

"Everything happened really fast."

Cara made sure to visit her doctor right away for a thorough breast exam. The doctor told her the lump was likely a cyst, not cancer, but to schedule a mammogram just to be sure. “I booked a mammogram on my way to work, thinking I’m going in as a precaution,” she says.

At the appointment, Cara was brought back into the exam room for an unexpected ultrasound following the mammogram. Then, she was told she’d also need a biopsy. “At this point, I was sort of starting to freak out,” she says.

Roughly two weeks after feeling the lump on her breast for the first time, Cara was diagnosed with breast cancer. She’d later find out that it was HER2-positive breast cancer, a type that tends to grow and spread more aggressively than HER2-negative breast cancers. “Everything happened really fast,” says Cara. Three weeks post-diagnosis, she had the lump and her lymph nodes removed.

Over the course of a year, Cara underwent many more surgeries and treatments to ensure her cancer was completely removed. These included a mastectomy, reconstructive breast surgery, six breast cancer-specific treatments of chemotherapy, 30 treatments of radiation, a skin graft surgery to reform her thinned breast tissue after prolonged radiation, a final breast augmentation surgery and 17 treatments of chemotherapy specifically to treat HER2-positive cancer.

During treatment, Cara met many other young women going through the same thing. “When I was growing up, if you got breast cancer at 50, that was young. It feels more prevalent in younger women now. It’s not an older person's disease,” she says. In fact, in North America, women under 50 represent 18 percent of breast cancer diagnoses.

Connecting with other women helped Cara navigate some of the fear and uncertainty, but her optimism and family life kept her afloat through it all. “I needed to show my kids that life can deal you some terrible stuff, but to find positive moments and persevere,” she says. “My son was almost four and my daughter was only seven when I was diagnosed. In my head, dying wasn’t an option.”

Throughout treatment, Cara never missed any of her kids’ extracurricular activities and made a point of participating in cancer awareness events with her support system of friends and family. Together, Cara and her loved ones acknowledged both challenges and triumphs. They even had parties to mark milestones, like her last chemotherapy treatment.

Another celebration came from a particularly challenging moment for Cara – shaving her head. “Losing my hair was scarier than losing my breast,” she says. Turning it into a head-shaving party made the process a lot less scary. Her children were involved too, with her daughter taking a few snips with the scissors. Being surrounded by love and support makes you realize that hair doesn’t change beauty, Cara says. “I’ve never felt more beautiful than I did on that day.

Although Cara has been cancer free for over a decade, she remains an advocate for early detection and an inspiration for young women like her daughter, who’s now in her 20s. “I’ve always shared my story,” says Cara. “I never wanted cancer to be my identity, just something that I went through. And I’d love to help anyone else that’s going through it too.”