Clea Shearer in hospital photo shared on Instagram.Photo:Clea Shearer/Instagram
Clea Shearer/Instagram
Clea Shearershared a scary “complication” in her ongoing recovery from breast cancer — one that made her “burst into tears.”
The Home Editfounder shared an update onInstagramon Tuesday, Feb. 18, explaining that on Valentine’s day, she “developed a massive pain in my right breast.”
“By the morning, my entire right breast looked and felt sunburned and the pain was awful. I consulted with my doctor and he put me on very strong antibiotics hoping to knock out whatever was happening (which of course ONLY happens on a holiday weekend),” Shearer, 43, wrote.
By Sunday, Feb. 16, Shearer was planning to travel to New York for an appearance onLive with Kelly and Mark,but said she had to cancel.
“I thought I could push through. I’ve sadly developed a pretty high threshold for pain,” she explained, saying that canceling was “a lesson in listening to your body, and I’m so glad I did.”
Clea Shearer shares an update in her ongoing breast cancer recovery on Instagram.Clea Shearer/Instagram
She continued, “I FaceTimed with my doctor to show the progression, and we talked about going to the ER, but decided instead to get examined and an ultrasound the next day.”
Getting the ultrasound, she shared, was “triggering” because it was in that room at Vanderbilt Breast Center in Nashville where “I learned I had breast cancer.”
Before she underwent the exam, Shearer said that her doctor told her to “emotionally prepare for needing to go flat” — meaning the implants that she’d had following a double mastectomy may need to be removed.
“I immediately burst into tears at the thought of losing my breasts twice. I know a lot of women choose that path, but this wasn’t what I wanted,” she explained. “I’ve spent a year and a half in constant surgeries to make myself feel whole again and it was too much to process.”
Nearly three years ago, the professional organizer and star ofGet Organized with the Home Edit, wasdiagnosed with stage 2 invasive mammary carcinoma, an aggressive form of breast cancer, in March 2022. Shearer underwent months of chemotherapy and radiation and multiple surgeries, including the double mastectomy and removal of her ovaries.
Shearer was declared cancer-free inNovember 2022and underwent breast reconstruction surgery two years later.
However, in January, the incision site of her breast implant started tearing, she told PEOPLE. While“it went really well,”the surgery to repair it — her eighth — “threw me for a loop.”
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At the prospect of losing her implant, Shearer said, “I sobbed. I don’t really sob and I don’t usually get that nervous … but this time I was really afraid of going back to that very dark period of my life following my double mastectomy and all those feelings it brought up for me about my body and my femininity … the thought of going back to nothing … it might seem shallow but the lack of completeness that cancer sometimes causes has definitely been weighing on me for the last couple of years.”
“The antibiotics seem to be working, and I keep talking to my implant to stay alive like it’s atamagotchi,” she said. “Everything actually looks good for a change.”
“This continues to be a long and often difficult journey …. Crying happy tears sure beats the other way around.”
source: people.com
