Clea Shearer to Start Chemotherapy This Week
- Professional organizer and Netflix star Clea Shearer, 40, is facing a tough week ahead of her, so she’s light of her situation with a little humor.
- On Thursday, Clea will start chemotherapy treatment for her stage 2 breast cancer. She will also have radiation treatment after finishing chemotherapy.
- Chemotherapy for breast cancer uses strong drugs to kill cancer all over the body.
- It’s possible that patients get this treatment to shrink a tumor before surgery, afterward to get rid of any remaining cancer cells (like Clea) or on its own if the patient cannot have surgery.
“This week is going to be a heavy one…” the Nashville, Tenn.-based breast cancer warrior posted to Instagram on Sunday evening, “so it's a good time to laugh at my favorite moment from season 2 of ‘Get Organized.'”
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Why will this week be heavy for Clea and her family? Well, on Thursday, May 19, Clea will start chemotherapy treatment for her stage 2 breast cancer. Details about where Clea will undergo treatment remains unclear, but she tagged Vanderbilt Breast Center when she announced her diagnosis last month, so it’s possible she’ll receive treatment there. She will also have radiation treatment after finishing chemotherapy.
In a May 5 Instagram post announcing that she would have to go through chemotherapy, Clea said, "Am I nervous? Absolutely. But am I ready? Absolutely. Chemo won't be fun, but it will be FINE! And when this is all done, I'm going to live to be 95."
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Clea Shearer lives in Tennessee with her husband, John, who’s a photographer, and their two children, Stella, 11, and Sutton, 7. She co-founded The Home Edit with her best friend and business partner Joanna Teplin, 42. Their business became such a success that Netflix opted to make a television show of it. Netflix released the second season of Get Organized with the Home Edit on April 1.
Clea Shearer’s Breast Cancer Diagnosis
Last month, Clea Shearer announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and that she would be undergoing a double mastectomy.
"I found a lump myself (in) the last week of February," Clea posted to Instagram on April 7. "I had been trying to make an appt with my OB(GYN) for several months, and even when I told them I found a lump, they couldn't accommodate me. I had to request a mammogram from my general doctor, which led to an ultrasound, and then an emergency triple biopsy."
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Clea, who's been sharing regular updates about her health on Instagram, was originally told her cancer was stage 1, but during the nine-hour surgery on Friday, April 8, doctors found cancer in one of her lymph nodes, which elevated the cancer to stage 2. The type of breast cancer Clea was diagnosed with hasn’t been been made public yet, but she said her cancer is "aggressive and fast-moving," however, "I caught it early."
She had two tumors, one measuring 2 centimeter in size and the other 3 centimeters (she was originally told each tumor was 1 centimeter). The tumors were sent to a lab in order to determine if Clea will need chemotherapy or radiation, and as stated earlier, it turns out she’ll need both.
According to her Instagram, Clea underwent a second breast cancer surgery recently because “some of my skin tissue is just NOT having it…” She’s currently recovering at home in preparation for beginning chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer
Chemotherapy for breast cancer uses strong drugs to kill cancer all over the body. It’s possible that patients get this treatment to shrink a tumor before surgery, afterward to get rid of any remaining cancer cells (like Clea Shearer) or on its own if the patient cannot have surgery.
An Overview of Breast Cancer Treatment
Whether or not to have chemotherapy can also be the patient's choice, depending on their age, the type of cancer they have and its stage.
If the patient's breast cancer is triple-negative, which means the three main types of receptors estrogen, progesterone and the HER2 protein don’t fuel the cancer, chemotherapy is typically the treatment. This is because the cancer does not respond to certain targeted therapies.
Women who are diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer have high levels of the HER2 protein on the outside of their cancer cells. For patients with early-stage disease, meaning they have relatively small tumors and no lymph involvement, a number of HER2-directed therapies have dramatically changed the landscape. These include chemotherapy drug trastuzumab (brand name: Herceptin), as well as pertuzumab (brand name: Perjeta), which is a monoclonal antibody used in combination with chemotherapy.
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