It was a February morning in 2022 when Clea Shearer started questioning her body. “The Home Edit” star was in the shower when a lump under her breast made her feel uneasy. It’s not that she hadn’t felt the lump before, but she’d just turned 40 and breast health was top of mind.
For the first time, Shearer started thinking that the lump could be something serious. “When I felt it, it wasn’t necessarily a new feeling. It was that I finally was questioning what it was,” she tells PS in an exclusive interview. “Now that I’m 40 and I know I have a mammogram coming up, why wouldn’t this be a tumor?” she started thinking. When she got out of the shower she contacted her gynecologist only to be told that they didn’t have another availability until May. “That was my first understanding of what this could be like for most women,” Shearer says. Fortunately, she followed up with her primary care doctor who got her in for a mammogram.
That mammogram turned into emergency triple biopsy and a diagnosis of early stage hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer with a high chance of reoccurrence. From there, things moved pretty quickly with several surgeries and radiation. “I was diagnosed March 8 and had my double mastectomy April 8. I had my follow up necrosis surgery one week later on Easter Sunday,” Shearer says. By November 22 Shearer finished up radiation and was declared “no evidence of disease.”
“If you’re a person that really loves organization and structure, cancer is just not the disease for you.”
In the months and years following, Shearer has done infusion therapy, had her ovaries removed, and started on Verzenio – a drug in which Shearer is now in partnership with – to keep the cancer at bay. “I celebrated being cancer-free in 2022, but let me tell you, that’s not worth very much if it comes back. So everything I do every day is diligently moving forward and thinking about ways to keep cancer from reoccurring,” she tells PS.
It’s all been a part of what Shearer calls calls her “action plan.” “As someone who has a brain that requires organization and order and systems, it’s tough to have a disease like cancer that does not follow any organized method. There is no system to put to place,” Shearer says. In other words: “If you’re a person that really loves organization and structure, cancer is just not the disease for you,” she tells PS. But what really helped her immediately after her diagnosis was putting together an action plan regarding how she would live her life with cancer. At the top of that list: “I’m going to become cancer free.”
“I was like, ‘I’m going to beat this. I know I’m going to beat it. And while I’m doing it, I’m going to make my cancer purposeful every single day. I’m going to make sure that I’m talking about this, that I’m educating people – again, only from what I am going through – but, I’m going to be open, I’m going to be loud, I’m going to be the best advocate I can possibly be,'” Shearer recalls telling herself at the time.
“For me, in my brain, that forward motion [was important],” Shearer says. That said, it hasn’t at all been an easy journey, especially transitioning from intense treatment to active maintenance.
“I felt like I had been through this unbelievably intense phase of my life that somehow, all of a sudden, one day, you’re just moved into the next bucket and told to reprioritize things and realign your thinking,” Shearer says. During the tough times Shearer relied on family, like her husband who takes notes at every appointment, and close friends like Christina Applegate who has been open about her own cancer journey 20 years ago. Still, everyone’s cancer journey is unique, Shearer says. “Even if you do have friends who are experiencing the same thing, or have experienced something similar, everyone’s diagnosis is different, and your path is going to be different.”
Her go-to outlet: journaling and chronicling the experience, Shearer says, noting that she’s working on a memoir. “Now I’m finally at a place where I can compartmentalize things in a healthier way and realize that it’s not this bucket and that bucket, but an overall journey.”
Alexis Jones is the senior health and fitness editor at PS. Her passions and areas of expertise include women’s health and fitness, mental health, racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare, and chronic conditions. Prior to joining PS, she was the senior editor at Health magazine. Her other bylines can be found at Women’s Health, Prevention, Marie Claire, and more.
