OKEECHOBEE — After a June 2023 mammogram revealed a small spot on her breast, Shawna May found herself fighting breast cancer. The fight began with a second mammogram, which also showed the small spot. A specialist performed a biopsy and found she had stage one, HR-positive, HER2-negative cancer. The doctor had an MRI done to see if there were any other spots and then did surgery in October. They removed the cancer, and then she had radiation done five days a week for four weeks. Since then, tests show her body to be clean and clear of cancer.

Shawna is an Okeechobee native, grew up here, went to school here, and married David May, who is the supervisor of elections. The couple has three children, ages 22, 18, and 15. Shawna works as the IT director for the Okeechobee County School Board.

Although in the past, the recommended age to begin having annual mammograms was 50, now they suggest starting at 40. Shawna was only 46 when her cancer was discovered. The spot was not something she would have been able to find at home.

 “I started at 40,” said Shawna. “I was very, very good at going every year. When they told me I had a spot, I just thought it was dense breast. I thought it was going to be nothing, but they have to be thorough.”

The doctor told Shawna she had the mammogram at the perfect time.

“I say it was a God thing,” said Shawna. “The doctor said if I had gone six months earlier, they probably would not have seen it. If I had gone six months later, it could have been much more than stage one, because it was a very aggressive type of cancer. It was the perfect time to have actually caught it.”

When she had her surgery, the surgeon took out some of the lymph nodes, and they came back cancer free, so she did not have to have chemotherapy. Instead, she had intensive radiation. The first three weeks, she felt fine, she said. But, by week four, she was struggling.

“I call that a God thing too, because that week was Christmas break from school. It was perfect timing, because I was very tired and drained. I had a lot of blistering too. The blistering really got to me, and I was just exhausted.”

She never lost her hair and said she has heard chemo is much worse than radiation, but radiation can be bad.

“The blistering is what really got me that last week. It’s very concentrated in that area, and it was very tender. Like having a really, really bad sunburn.”

Shawna said she was very open about her cancer with her friends, family and coworkers.

“I have a very strong faith, and so, I wanted as many people as I could praying for my family and my kids.”

During the stressful times, she thought of one of her favorite songs, Same God. The song talks about her god being the same god who helped David with Goliath and the same God who parted the Red Sea. During her first breast MRI, that song came on.

“It affirmed everything for me. It reminded me that I was not alone in there, and with His help, I could do it.”

For the first three years, she had to have mammograms and ultrasounds every six months, and her mother Joann drove her back and forth to her treatments every day for five weeks. She just finished her third year and would have been able to go back to yearly tests. Unfortunately, her last test revealed a spot the doctor wants to monitor. He believes it is just calcification. If there is no change when she goes back in December, she can go back to yearly tests.

Because she does not carry the BRCA gene, her children do not have to deal with that. “That was an answer to prayer, not only for me but for my kids.”

“It’s so important to go every year,” she said. “The sooner they catch it, the higher the percentage of survival. Even if you think you are too young, or even too old, just go and get it done. It’s painless. It’s easy, and most insurances cover it.”