Listening to 31-year-old Sarah Bowman speak animatedly about throwing out the first pitch at a Stockton Ports baseball game, it's impossible to guess that just two years ago she was battling aggressive Stage 3 breast cancer.

The baseball game was on the Ports’ second annual Pink Day, an event specially organized to promote breast cancer awareness. Bowman nearly glows when she describes how happy she is to reach out to others whose lives have been affected.

"I feel honored that they would ask me to do something like that," she says. "I feel like it's my way of giving back."

Bowman, whose successful treatment included a mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation, is an outgoing, energetic single mother of three. Her outlook is almost unrelentingly positive. She even credits her experience battling—and surviving—cancer for giving her a new perspective on life.

"You can either let it ruin you, scare you, or make you a better person," she says.

In August of 2006, Bowman was working at a gas station in Stockton. She was still recovering from a Cesarean section a few months prior. One day, while breastfeeding infant Jonathan, she noticed a painful lump on her breast.

At first the doctors thought it was an infection. But when antibiotic treatment failed to eliminate the almond-sized mass, the doctor recommended a biopsy. However, breast cancer rates in young women are low—just 1.9% of women diagnosed are under the age of 34. Her family didn't seriously consider the possibility, even though Bowman's mother is herself a breast cancer survivor.

It took until September for Bowman to receive her diagnosis. By then, the cancer had spread to 11 of 24 of her lymph nodes. She was 29 years old.

The day of her diagnosis, all three children were at the clinic with her, waiting in the lobby with Bowman's grandmother. Bowman reacted to the diagnosis as if it were a physical blow: with disbelief, then despair. She called her grandmother in and gave her the news.

"I didn't want the kids to know yet," she says. Ultimately, though, the support of her family was critical to her recovery. About her children, she says, "they were my doctors and my nurses. We got through it together."

In October of 2006, Bowman had a mastectomy, and by the first of December she had started chemotherapy, a grueling series of treatments with Adriamycin, Cytoxan, and Taxol to combat the aggressively-growing cancer.

By the second week of chemotherapy, her hair began to fall out.
"For me," Bowman says, "not losing a breast, but losing my hair, was the hardest." She felt like herself, but "I'd look in the mirror, and I would die….When you have no eyebrows and no eyelashes, it's hard."

After three months in chemotherapy, she began radiation treatment. Much of that year was a blur. She does remember picking up her daughters Dearah and Hannah from school and staying parked on the street instead of pulling up to the front of the school.

"I didn't want their friends to say, 'what's wrong with your mom?'" she says, her voice choked with emotion. "I didn't want them to be put in a situation like that."

In summer of 2007, Bowman finished radiation treatment.

"I finally feel like I can look in the mirror and I see me." Despite lingering effects that include pain, numbness, and swelling, she relishes feeling like herself again. Even missing a breast doesn't bother her.

"I grew up seeing my mom like that," she says. She talks about being a good example for her children, staying strong and positive for them while also showing that it's okay to accept help when you need it. Recently, the family attended the We Can Weekend, a annual retreat for families dealing with cancer that Bowman herself attended with her own mother many years ago.

She's also thrown herself into events such as the Relay for Life and the Surviving Beautifully fashion show, grateful for the opportunity to help other women like her. The kindness of those involved in her own treatment, she says, was a blessing.

Now, she has a job she enjoys—a claims assistant for a worker's compensation firm—and she just got a promotion.

"Good things are really happening to me. I'm very happy in my life." When asked what advice she'd give young women diagnosed with breast cancer, she talks about the power of staying healthy and positive.

"People want their lives back when they're diagnosed," she says. "But the only way you can get your life back is getting through this time."
In the end, her journey has come full circle. The experience made her stronger, as well as giving her a renewed drive to get her life together and help others in the same situation.

Just this month, she made friends with a woman in her cancer support group who was having a difficult time coping. On her lunch hour, Bowman went to sit with the woman while she was getting her chemotherapy treatment.

"I thought I'd be scared to see her in there like I was, but it made me feel good that they could see me, see that I'm okay…that [I could] give them inspiration that they'll be okay."