Deb Schuler

Cancer survivor

Atlantic, IA

Biography

In 1991, Deb and her husband were excited to start a family, though when going for her annual wellness checkup, the doctors found a tumor about the size of a grapefruit. The tumor wrapped around her ovaries and she had to be taken into surgery. While in surgery, doctors saw the tumor had spread and removed both of Deb’s ovaries, some of her lymph nodes, and a small portion of her stomach lining. Deb has been cancer free for 20 years .

PERSPECTIVE

The doctor called me back in and asked meet with him at 5 PM on a Friday. I was like that’s odd. He explained what was going on and what the course of action was. The first 10 seconds, I looked at my mom, and she looked at me, it’s like, this is what the good Lord put in front of us so that is what we will deal with. We’ll do everything that the medical community suggests we do, and we’ll keep a positive attitude. After about 30 seconds, it was decided this is going to be a new challenge in our life, we weren’t planning on this, but that’s okay.

CANCER DOESN’T CARE

When I was 29 years old, I was in the best shape of my life. I was teaching classes at the YMCA, I would teach 12 classes a week. I wasn’t overweight, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I try to eat a healthy diet. I tried to do all the right things, but cancer doesn’t care. I was shocked that there was anything wrong with me. So I’m a huge advocate of making sure that everybody has those annual checkups because I was basically asymptomatic when they found it. I am very fortunate to be sitting here today in front of you because of that.

PERSPECTIVE

Back then, for people in their 20s and early 30s, the survival rate was not huge. So I could’ve looked at it like that, but I chose to think we can do this. When you are caught off guard with something like that, try to take the positive side of things, the optimistic side of things. The strong community of this YMCA was certainly part of that. It helped me decide right then and there that I was going to beat this.

Do those checkups, do those checkups. No excuses. Don't care what you got going on. Mark it on the calendar, make sure you get there. It's very important to do those wellness checks.