[00:00:00] Adam Walker: From Susan G Komen, this is Real Pink, A podcast exploring real stories, struggles, and triumphs related to breast cancer. We’re taking the conversation from the doctor’s office to your living room.
[00:00:17] Today we’re joined by Sheri Easter who shares her powerful and uplifting journey through breast cancer from the moment of diagnosis to treatment and beyond. Sheri opens up about the lifestyle changes she embraced, the incredible support she received from loved ones and how laughter becomes one of the greatest tools in healing her resilience and optimism shine as she offers heartfelt advice for others facing similar challenges.
[00:00:43] We got connected by a high school friend of mine that you happen to know as well, and he knew I was doing the show and connected me to you so we could hear about your breast cancer journey. So welcome to the show.
[00:00:56] Sheri Easter: Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. Yeah. I’ve known Aaron since he was a kid.
[00:01:01] Adam Walker: Well, so Sheri, tell us, you know, for our listeners that don’t know you tell us, like who are you what’s your story, what are you about?
[00:01:07] Sheri Easter: Well, I grew up in a musical family. My family was known as the first family of Bluegrass gospel music. For 58 years, they traveled and sang the Lewis family and they traveled to bluegrass festivals all across the country.
[00:01:24] And in the fifties and sixties it was churches and community centers. And yeah, then it became performing arts centers and so we would do things like the Smithsonian, whenever they would honor bluegrass music, things like that, events. And so I married. A gentleman who is basically from the same family.
[00:01:45] Okay. Alright. Just a different one. Yeah. Yeah. He, yeah. Came from the Easter brothers and their background was more churches and southern gospel concerts. Okay. But we were more known for their writing. My family was more known for the performing and those kind of things. So we grew up very similarly and Jeff and I,
[00:02:03] this June, we’ll be celebrating 40 years of marriage.
[00:02:05] Adam Walker: Wow. Man, it’s so great.
[00:02:08] Sheri Easter: Sheri Easter for 40 years now.
[00:02:10] Adam Walker: Wow. I love that. I love that’s such an amazing career. And you’ve been to the Grammys and all kinds. That’s so great. So. So, all right. So, so tell us start us through your breast cancer journey.
[00:02:21] You know, when were you, like, how old were you? Like, give us kind of the whole fly over here.
[00:02:25] Sheri Easter: Well, in 2005 I found out that we were expecting a baby. And we had been married 20 years At that point, I already had a 12-year-old and a 17-year-old. So it was quite a shock. Yeah. That, that I have this
[00:02:43] baby coming along. We had a 20th anniversary trip planned to Italy and we waddled for about 10 days because it was just trying to survive the six month, you know, at that age, at 42. Right? So, fast forward a couple of years later and I found a lump myself. My aunt had been through breast cancer and I found it in the early part of the year and I…
[00:03:10] I believe it’s God, it just laid it on my heart. One day I was having a conversation with a woman and I told her that I was gonna make a follow up appointment because I had found a breast lump. Yeah. This particular lady had been through breast cancer herself. She had a double mastectomy. And had gotten a report of everything’s clear like two months before that.
[00:03:33] Wow. My brain started spinning. How do you get a clear checkup? Yeah. Then go straight into double mastectomy. Yeah, because I had, because of my aunt’s history, had always had annual appointments. Mammograms, faithful to all of that. Right. I’m very obedient, very structured, routine organized, detailed.
[00:03:56] Don’t bend or break any rules, just that’s me.
[00:04:00] Yeah. Right, right. Well,
[00:04:00] it wasn’t even time for my mammogram yet. That would’ve been in the fall of the year. Okay. This was like February. Okay. She sent me immediately to my doctor’s office, and I called him first and said, I’d like, you know, for somebody to check me.
[00:04:17] She said, why don’t you go straight to the surgeon and that’ll take a step out. And then that way he can check until, all right, she says, it’s probably a cyst. Don’t worry about it. So I went into the office and by now it had gotten to be about end of May, middle June, something. I told her I said, you know, you know the doctor said it’s probably just a cyt cyst, don’t worry.
[00:04:46] He said, do you mind if I do a biopsy while you’re here? Because on the sonogram it didn’t look like a cyst. Right, right, right. And so he did a biopsy that day and told me he’d call me within a couple of days. And when I got the phone call, it was the week before July 4th. And he called me on the phone.
[00:05:09] He said, I don’t wanna give people information like this, but I know you’re traveling. And I typically travel every weekend. And he said, but there’s a little bit of breast cancer there. And I could just tell the tenderness in his voice. He didn’t wanna say it at all. Yeah. But here I am. I had a mother that has Parkinson’s and Lewy dementia at the time.
[00:05:38] I had a 2 year old. I had two or three businesses at one time. Yeah. Yeah. And it was just too much. And I literally said to him, I said, okay, what do I do? Because I don’t have time for this in my schedule. Right?
[00:05:52] Adam Walker: I don’t have time for breast cancer. So what’s the plan?
[00:05:55] Sheri Easter: After I’ve been through breast cancer, I hear the arrogance in that statement.
[00:06:00] Adam Walker: Right? No, but I love it. I love that.
[00:06:02] I love that attitude. That’s such a great way to look at it. Listen, I don’t have time to be sick. What’s the plan? Let’s get
[00:06:08] going.
[00:06:09] Sheri Easter: Yeah, absolutely. So I told him, he said, well, I am going on vacation next week, the surgery on, but if you’re get another to go ahead, start the construction.
[00:06:25] So I met this guy he said he could do it on Tuesday. So I met the other doctor on Monday and he looked at me and he said so you’re just meeting me today and you want me to do surgery on you tomorrow? And I said, yes. And he said, well, I didn’t say I couldn’t do it. I just said that I’m gonna have to move some things around.
[00:06:46] So they ended up coordinating schedules. We found out and six days I went in for a mastectomy. That is wild. They gave me the choice of radiation and lumpectomy. Yeah. But with a 2-year-old Yeah. I really didn’t wanna play. Yeah, that’s right. And watching my aunt go through it I knew that it would be a year.
[00:07:08] I knew that it would be a haul and and so I literally just said most aggressive, I even said double mastectomy. Yeah. And they said there’s really no need, no concern. So I did the mastectomy. After that was done, they told me that I could do the tamoxifen for a year. Yep. And that I could do chemotherapy to prevent any recurrences.
[00:07:34] I said, hit me with your best shot.
[00:07:39] Adam Walker: I love your attitude. It’s so good.
[00:07:41] Sheri Easter: I’ve been told before, I’m tough as a pine knot now I see that. Okay. Yeah. I don’t see the strength that other people do, but I am very much a realist and so it’s just, you know, it’s one of those things that it’s breast cancer, now let’s do what we can. And so I was very aggressive.
[00:07:59] They did the surgery. I got eight weeks off before they wanted to start the chemotherapy and I went right back on the road, I think it was 12 days later. And my son stayed home with me that first weekend. And so the rest of my family, they traveled and I ended up 12 days later going back out on the road and singing and it was not easy and I
[00:08:31] I wish I hadn’t sometimes looked so strong because it really is as bad as everybody says it’s horrible. But I just kept plowing and just wanted to see the end of it. And just persevered. To be honest with you, I never missed a performance. I had one evening at a we always did the Gaither Homecoming concerts, right?
[00:09:01] And at that time they would be in these big basketball arenas. So there’d be 18, 20,000 people there. Yeah. And I would go on stage and sing my part, and then I would just sit and rest. Then there’s always an intermission. I didn’t go to the table and then there would be like a second half, right?
[00:09:20] I missed one of the second halves one time, and I was crying at the bus door and Jeff looked at me and he said, honey, go to bed. Nobody expects you to be in here. And so I did, I listened to him, but but we made trips during the course of chemo and all of that. I had chemo on one of the Mondays and went to the Grand Canyon.
[00:09:44] And vowed that I was going to walk, you know, a part of the south. No. So I did. I walked, you know, and then I even on the last day of treatment, it was on a Monday and I went to Disney World on Thursday of that week or something. I’m like, you know, I don’t look like a lot of the people walking around.
[00:10:04] Yeah. Yeah, I’m a little different, you know, a little weak, a little sallow, a little less hair than everybody else.
[00:10:12] Right.
[00:10:12] But you know what? I just felt like I had a lot to prove, so, so.
[00:10:16] Adam Walker: I have two questions for you then. So, so the first you made a really interesting comment. You said you wished you hadn’t looked so strong.
[00:10:23] I think that’s what you said. So, so unpack that for me a little bit. What do you mean by that and why is that, why do you have that sentiment?
[00:10:30] Sheri Easter: You know I think for strength is a very good thing, but I also think and believe in just opening up and just letting it all out and just giving people the version and not necessarily the best version.
[00:10:50] Definitely not the worst version. My mom was very perky. She was full of personality. She was wonderful on stage. She smiled at everybody and she made everybody’s day better. If you knew Polly, you knew that you were a better person for having known her. She was… That was just who she was. So I was brought up in a household to where we smiled and we just persevered, and it wasn’t about hiding or pushing down things.
[00:11:18] It’s not that. It’s more of a it’s more of a smile so you feel like smiling or be positive until you have something to be positive about. It changes you, right? Yeah, it really does. Yeah. The mindset really says a lot, and I can almost tell you, because I’ve heard a thousand breast cancer stories, I can almost tell you who’s going to farewell and who’s not.
[00:11:46] And these ladies who come up to me and they say, I’ve got this. It’s hard, but I’ve got it. I know that they’ve got it. Yeah, because it makes a huge difference. Yeah. They’re going their best. Yeah. And it really does make a difference. But say for the people closest to me, I would I wish they had actually seen how hard it was.
[00:12:07] You know? Yeah. Not for any reason other than just being aware. Yeah. Just to be real. I really, I don’t like sympathy. I don’t like pity and I don’t ever draw attention to myself if I’m ill. Right. Yeah. I just get up and keep going. But, you know, sometimes I think if we are afraid to show people our scars, I don’t know how we’re gonna be able to help them.
[00:12:30] And a wonderful thing happened to me during the course of that, actually bringing that subject up in May of the next year, I had a port and I was in a gift shop in Gatlinburg and we were performing there at the Civic Center. And I was just in and out of the little shops. And one man stopped me.
[00:12:51] He said, are you Sheri Easter? And I said, I, and he said, I knew. And he had seen it right there. It’s just right there at the top, you know? Oh yeah. He and oh. That’s quite the message.
[00:13:11] Adam Walker: Yeah. I mean from all the things to be recognized by Yes. You know, you’re, he noticed the scar and that’s very..
[00:13:16] Sheri Easter: And how is it, what a beautiful thing.
[00:13:19] Yeah. Especially in gospel music. Yeah. That I can use my scars to encourage other people. That’s right. Yeah. And that’s right. So may, maybe that’s what I’m feeling when I say sometimes I wish I hadn’t Yeah. Going through it, so forcefully. Yeah. Yeah. My husband and I both, we treated it like a project.
[00:13:37] Yeah. You know, like building we love to build, we love to do things like that together. And we looked at it like it was a project. And just, okay. One more treatment. Okay. Two more. Two more of these. One more this, you know, one more, one more. Visit to the doctor and then I get my port out and, you know, it was just like the next thing on the calendar.
[00:13:58] Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the Bible talks about not wishing away our days. But I gotta be honest, when you go through something like that, that is, I refer to it as an event. You know it’s really, I mean, it was a year. Yeah. It was a year of my life and it was quite the event everything from having to learn wall clams.
[00:14:25] Be able to raise my hand all the way up because I had women tell me, don’t give those up because you’ll get stuck about here and never go any further. Right. So just anything I could do exercise, diet. Oh, I immediately stopped eating things. I’d always been nutritiously driven. Okay. In my diet because my mom was very conscientious, my brother the same.
[00:14:48] But I had never. Done any really drastic changes. So at that point I stopped eating sugar, I stopped eating breads. I stopped I, I curbed my coffee to one, one cup a day instead of one pot. Right, right. And I went to a wellness clinic and I did everything good that I possibly could and I took anything that she recommended, the resveratrol and all of the natural methods of preventing breast cancer.
[00:15:25] And I cut out beef and pork and I’ve not had beef or pork and this is 18, 17 years now. Whoa. Okay. Wow. Bacon file, mignon, all of those things that I used consider wonderful. I don’t any of those things anymore. Now it’s chicken, fish, Turkey things like that.
[00:15:46] Adam Walker: So the health
[00:15:46] stuff stuck with you long term then as well, right?
[00:15:49] Absolutely. And why is that? Is that because it was. A lifestyle change or you felt better? Or was it because of like, the risk of recurrence or like what, what made that, what made you of that?
[00:15:58] Sheri Easter: I think it’s a
[00:15:58] combination. Okay. But more than anything, I realized that my body didn’t like it. Oh, okay. It wasn’t that, it wasn’t that I didn’t like those foods, my body didn’t like them.
[00:16:10] Right. So even now, like I was teasing my husband earlier. We have grand babies who are staying in our backyard right now just because they’re building a house. Okay. So they’re in a camper in our backyard. Nice. For these like few weeks. And so there’s always little snacky things around the house. And I’ve lost 44 pounds in the last five years because.
[00:16:32] Buddy the tamoxifen just packed on the pounds. I’d never been overweight and had three babies and gone right back to my, my, my normal size. But in that year of Tamoxifen, it was 60 pounds increase. And I’m just a very small person, five feet tall. Okay. And so that’s a lot of weight for me to carry.
[00:16:52] Yeah.
[00:16:52] And so 44 of those are gone now, thankfully. Very. All right. Congrats. Realizing it doesn’t like me, so I was telling my husband last night, the girls left some goldfish over here. You know, they’re big, they can’t be too bad, but they are carbs and I don’t eat carbs. I was awake half the night.
[00:17:13] Really? Absolutely crazy because I eat so clean. Oh yeah. That if I mess up in the least. It shows. Yeah. You know, and no sugar zero. Yeah. I just somebody every now and then, oh, you have to try this piece of cake. You have to try. And when I do, as soon as I do, I’m like, I’m paying for this one. Yeah. It’s, yeah.
[00:17:34] So when I cut out fried foods 20 years ago, fried foods don’t like me. Yeah. So. I have a very boring diet. Yeah. Of one fruit a day, vegetables, and then everything lean and green that I can pack inside.
[00:17:49] Adam Walker: I
[00:17:49] love that. I what’s the, what’s your preferred one fruit is what I want to know from that.
[00:17:53] Sheri Easter: My
[00:17:53] one fruit, I do blueberries.
[00:17:55] Antioxidants.
[00:17:56] Oh, blueberries are so good. Lovely. So good. Yes. I’m
[00:17:59] more of a berry fan than any other.
[00:18:01] Adam Walker: Yeah.
[00:18:06] Sheri Easter: And then we don’t have tangerines.
[00:18:09] Adam Walker: That’s true. That’s true. Mangoes or something.
[00:18:14] You’ve told so many stories. Like, like, like I think the one that stuck was like, you had a treatment and on a Monday and then a Thursday you’re at Disney World. Right? So that is a level of tenacity that I think a lot of people probably would not have. And rightfully so. So I guess I, I guess my question is like, what…
[00:18:34] what drives that in you? Like what is it about, like, I, what is it about this situation that’s like, I’m gonna do this no matter, I’m not letting it stop me. What made that?
[00:18:45] Sheri Easter: I’m gonna tell what my mom always says. Okay. I was trying very hard to enter this world my own way. Which happened to be breach.
[00:18:55] And after 20 something hours, I finally forfeited and my mom always said that I was determined from the minute I left the room. So, you know, maybe it’s just personality, but, you know, I just I guess there’s something in me. That has I, I always see another option. You know? Yeah. I always see a different direction.
[00:19:20] Right. You know, the two roads diverge and we make a choice and then you go down this one, well, this one is not where I need to be, so let’s detour. Yeah. There’s always something that drives me. Always a hope. Always an encouragement, always a force. I know that my faith is very strong. I fell in love with Jesus when I was 11 years old.
[00:19:43] Just fell in love and became consumed with Bible reading and scripture memorization. And my grandmother was the daughter of a pastor. She lived to be 92 years old. She had eight children and she basically was the ruler of the household. She respected my grandfather, but she’s the one who made all of the business decisions.
[00:20:09] She ran everything. My mom was a business woman. She managed our whole household. So now I do that. I have a master’s in business. I love it.
[00:20:18] Adam Walker: Love that I.
[00:20:23] Sheri Easter: And it was for my grandmother back in the thirties and forties. Yeah. It was for my mom back in the sixties. And and then I do the same, but the thing with grandma is I noticed that everything about her business decisions, she just wrapped in prayer. She was one of those very faithful women who would hit her knees every night, even though they traveled a hundred thousand miles a year on a bus.
[00:20:51] To travel and sing. Wow, that’s a lot of miles. All of the ladies would go in and sleep in the two double beds. And my grandma, it didn’t matter if it was three o’clock in the morning or if it was five o’clock in the morning. We were only gonna get two hours sleep. My grandmother would walk in, kneel down at the bed and take her time for prayer.
[00:21:12] I wish I could say I was that faithful, but I did learn one thing. I can be a prayer warrior from sun up to sundown, and I do that. I pray, you know consistently, yeah. For family, for friends, for needs that I see. And I just think when we have something bigger than ourselves to, to trust with all of the really big stuff, then the pressure’s off here.
[00:21:40] Yeah. I’ve always said that about singing. I never sang a note until I was 15 years old, even though I was raised up. A singing family. I was horrified at the thought of looking into somebody’s eyes and just bursting into songs. Yeah.
[00:21:55] Adam Walker: Most people are, you know, most people are terrified of that, right?
[00:21:58] Sheri Easter: Yeah. Yeah. And I was so timid. Yeah. And it was just one of those things I could never have imagined as being a career, even though music gave me such joy. Yeah. Long story short, I won’t even bother you with the details, but back then my classmates voted me as a representative for homecoming court.
[00:22:19] Had to perform a talent. I sang, I don’t do anything halfway, so I did it 150% with the skit and all of the dress, the wears, the, you know, everything. Yeah. But including a blank gun to shoot off at the end of it. Boom, there we go. Everything’s wonderful. And the place erupted and applause. And I thought, wow, that wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be.
[00:22:43] Right? Yeah. So every time I’ve ever had anything big to do as a singer. I just think, you know what, if God brought me here, he is gonna carry me through it. Yeah. It’s not me.
[00:22:52] Adam Walker: Well, all. And so the way I feel, so Sheri it’s been some years since you, you’ve, you know, you’ve been diagnosed and all that you’re, you know that it’s in your rear view mirror which is great.
[00:23:04] Very thankful for that. So I guess I’m curious. Looking back and knowing that a lot of our listeners are in the thick of it Yes. Or just starting out their cancer journey or they’re supporting a loved one that’s got a breast cancer journey. Like, what would you want them to know that you, as you look back and reflect on your own journey?
[00:23:24] Sheri Easter: Be supportive in everything because things like, things like losing your eyelashes and your eyebrows and the shape of your body, things that you lose through breast cancer sound very general and on paper. Look very unimportant. But when you stare at yourself in the mirror every day, you can see the sallow eyes and you can see the different color of your skin.
[00:24:11] And the loss of the hair. I didn’t lose all of my hair, but it was thinned out like a little old man’s. So I wore wigs on stage and you.
[00:24:29] It’s not fun to look in a mirror and not recognize a sickly person because I’ve always been so healthy, right? So see the things for what they are and that is huge. Hear the things that they don’t necessarily say.
[00:24:56] My kids, I would say things like, would you mind getting me something to drink? And my kids would come back because they’re very very funny, very dark, dry, sarcastic wit, right? So they would look at me and say, oh, mom, get it yourself. It’s not like you’re doing chemo or anything, you know. And of course we’d laugh, we’d giggle.
[00:25:22] My son even told me one time, I said, buddy, I said, I just got my chemo yesterday. And he said, oh great she’s using the cancer card. So it was always things like that. But here what’s not being said, the laughter. He’s huge. Make him laugh. Watch funny movies, tell funny stories funny memories anything you can find to laugh about.
[00:25:48] Laugh at yourself. Yeah, because the laughter is, oh, those endorphins. Laughter do with good like a medicine. Yeah. And we watched more comedies that year than ever and and just try to support that person in the way that person needs supporting. Like, my children know that I don’t like to be petted or.
[00:26:10] I like to be helped and I like to be loved. I enjoy for them to express their love. So they were very good at expressing their love. And very good at keeping me keeping me honest and keeping me humble. Whenever I felt like taking advantage, because every now and then there’s that beautiful thing that just, ugh, I don’t think I can make it through one more day.
[00:26:40] Yes, you can. Yeah. I even, my nephew told my aunt, she went through breast cancer 13 years later, had to go through it again. Wow. And she bent over the kitchen countertop and cried. When she got the results back and she said, I cannot do this. He said, oh, yes ma’am, you can. And there was just no, no doubts about it.
[00:27:04] And she now is close to her 30 year. Wow. Great for her. So, wow. You know it’s about the mindset. So support, listen, here are the things that they’re not actually saying. Lots of laughter, you know, and just know that it’s not gonna last a lifetime. I think one of the wisest things a woman said to me is she said, believe it or not, one day you will look back.
[00:27:30] You will not think about cancer during the day. She said, now you’re gonna think about it several times during the day. Right. And there are times that I’ve gone weeks without even a thought, and then something either the way a blouse fits or somebody says something or whatever it will be. Oh yeah, boy, that was tough.
[00:27:54] And my husband loves to tell the story of the first time I came on stage. With eyelashes, false eyelashes, I never wore them. And cancer gives no warning. Chemo gives no warning. So you basically have your hair, you have everything, and then you don’t. Yeah, right. And so it’s not like you’re gonna get used to this.
[00:28:15] And so I was getting ready for stage one night. I realized I had no eyelashes. I mean, it was like from last night to tonight, right? Yeah. A friend who had been through breast cancer, she hands me false eyelashes. I didn’t have any with me, but I went ahead and put those on. Thank you. This is incredible.
[00:28:35] This looks great. Well, they were longer than I would normally wear anyway. Right. Even in the Falsies. Right. I walked on stage and at during those days we would do a love song to each other, so I would walk up from the left side. He would walk up from the right side, you know stage left. Sure. Right.
[00:28:50] Yeah. We met in the middle and he said all he saw was. And he said it reminded him of Rudolph and Clice. She likes me. She really likes me. Oh, that’s so good. That’s so good. So it’s things like that make you, you gotta laugh. Yeah. I was going through Chick-fil-A, one day, he looked over at me and he’s from North Carolina, really deep southern drawl and he said
[00:29:17] this chemo thing ain’t been all that bad.
[00:29:23] And I looked at him with daggers and said, maybe not from your seat, but from my seat. It’s been quite interesting. But you know, when you’ve got things like that happening to Yeah. To help you laugh through it, you’ve got a good support system to walk through it knowing that it’s gonna end. Yeah. And it, it may take a while.
[00:29:46] You’re going to one day not think about cancer. Not have an appointment on your calendar. And just stay proactive. Like, like me, I five years ago when I started losing the weight, I went and had the BRCA gene test. I did test positive, so that means now they, they see me in the spring and in the fall, right?
[00:30:10] Yeah. So I go in for an MRI in the, like about February, march. I go in for my mammograms in the fall and things like that, as scary as it is to have that knowledge is power. Yes. It’s, yeah, that’s right. And so the thing is now I can, you know, I can ask for the best treatment. Yeah. And I can rest in the fact that should anything ever happen.
[00:30:32] That it’s not going to be a year. Yeah. Before anybody knows, you’ll know. Yeah, that’s right. You know? That’s right. Yeah.
[00:30:39] Adam Walker: Well, Sheri I could keep talking to you forever, but I do have to close this out for the length of the show’s sake. But I, we’re gonna have to do this again because this is a really, we’ll do excellent interview.
[00:30:49] I I can’t thank you enough for sharing your story with us your life, your anecdotes just, it’s so powerful and I’m really, I really enjoyed talking to you, Dave. Thank you for joining us on the show.
[00:31:01] Sheri Easter: Back at you. Adam. Thank you so much. I do believe that creating awareness saves lives. It does.
[00:31:07] Anything I can do to think pink, I try.
[00:31:10] Adam Walker: We’ll do it. Do.
[00:31:17] Thanks for listening to Real Pink, a weekly podcast by Susan G Komen. For more episodes, visit real pink.Komen.org. And for more on breast cancer, visit Komen.org. Make sure to check out at Susan G Komen on social media. I’m your host, Adam. You can find me on Twitter at AJ Walker or on my blog adam j walker.com.