Beautiful Warrior Story: Rach Peterson

This blog post is part of an ongoing series that highlights Hope Clothing GB's Beautiful Warrior Program. Rach Peterson was nominated and took part in a $200 shopping spree because of all of you. The following is Rach Peterson's story, in her own words:

My name is Rachael Peterson. Let me tell you how awesome my 30th birthday party was! I was showering for dinner and did a self breast exam. A golf ball size mass rolled through my fingers on my right side. Being a nurse I told myself not to panic because it could be a cyst or benign mass. A week after my birthday the results came in. I have infiltrating ductal breast cancer that spread to my lymph nodes. Not only is it the most aggressive kind, because of course that wasn’t good enough, but my progesterone receptor was the only positive receptor. This means chemotherapy now only had a 50% chance of working. Although it only had a 50% chance of working on my cancer, it somehow had a greater chance of killing my ovaries.

Since I do not have children, I asked about freezing my eggs, and of course, I’m told that process would only feed my cancer and I didn’t have that kind of time! Welcome to 30! I got my chemotherapy port placed two weeks after my birthday and started chemotherapy two days later. I then had a meeting in which I’m told twenty weeks of chemotherapy, followed by surgery, followed by radiation, and topped off with ten years of hormonal pills to combat cancer. I went from stage 2 to finding out I was stage 3 upon waking up from my bilateral mastectomy.

All in perfect timing, I met a man thirty days before I was diagnosed. I swear God introduced me to him because he knew a storm was coming that I couldn’t face without him. We literally are a fairytale. And he has become a part of my family a lot sooner than I expected. We are now engaged to be married in October of this year (2021). From picking me off the floor to cleaning my drains this man is an angel sent down from Heaven.

Being a female, losing my hair was a tough pill to swallow, but being selected as a warrior from Hope Clothing was such a light in a time of darkness. As you can imagine there are days that I didn’t even want to get out of bed due to pain, nausea, or weakness, but being selected gave me that motivation to get out of the house, and feel like a woman again! It brought back a sense of confidence that I thought I lost. Thank you Hope Clothing for honoring women in a time they need it most!