2011 Cards for a Cure Honoree

Steffany Lendon

Steffany Lewis Lendon grew up knowing about cancer. She watched her paternal grandfather valiantly fight, but ultimately lose his battle with lung and brain cancer. She heard stories about her great-grandfather losing his battle with breast cancer and her great-grandmother succumbing to ovarian cancer. Then 15 years ago, her own mother, Kay Cable, was diagnosed with breast cancer; Kay fought and won her battle. In 2006, during a self-exam, Steffany found a lump in her right breast and knew immediately something was very wrong. Two weeks later Steffany was diagnosed with invasive ductile breast cancer. She immediately became the aggressor in her battle with this disease. Within weeks Steffany had a double mastectomy, began reconstructive surgery and started chemotherapy — all at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Realizing that knowledge is power and worrying about her sisters and her young daughter, Steffany had a comprehensive BRAC Analysis performed. Unfortunately, but not to her surprise, Steffany tested positive for the BRAC2 mutation. As a result of this information, Steffany had a total abdominal hysterectomy and oophorectomy in November 2006, to lessen her chance for ovarian cancer. Later, following in her footsteps, Steffany’s two sisters went through the genetic testing and decided to have prophylactic double mastectomies. During her battle, Steffany faced many challenges: being laid off from work (the same week she started chemotherapy), divorce and ultimately raising her daughter by herself; however, during this time Steffany never gave up. She always stated there was a reason this was happening and she was going to turn all of this into a positive. Steffany became involved with Cards for a Cure from its inception and is now following her life-long dream of working in the Oncology field as a pharmaceutical consultant.