SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. – Paula Taylor loves riding motorcycles, and this ‘Super Nana’ didn’t know how to take her foot off the gas when she was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer at age 61 in June of 2014.
“You feel rough and tough when you ride a motorcycle, and you feel like you could do anything, and then you get a diagnosis like that and all of a sudden you get deflated,” Paula said. “I had skipped my mammogram and I was blaming myself. I skipped a year. How could I have done that? I’m smarter than that. Triple-negative is a very aggressive cancer.”
That TNBC diagnosis wasn’t the only shocking news that week for Paula and her boyfriend, Carl.
“I went with her to the biopsy, and during the biopsy, I got a phone call…my son-in-law had passed away,” Carl said. “One of those shocking things you aren’t prepared for.”
Now, grieving his 36-year-old son-in-law, Ryan, and facing the idea of losing the love of his life, Carl made a decision right then and an offer of hope to Paula.
“To be confronted with a diagnosis of cancer being a loved one is terrifying,” Carl said. “It’s a life choice at that point of how important is that person to you.”
“I turn around and he’s on his knee and he proposed,” Paula said tearfully. “I was overwhelmed and he gave me the ring.”
She happily accepted. It wasn’t how Carl had originally planned to propose marriage to Paula, but it was special and a promise of a brighter future.
That same week, mere days after receiving that life-changing news, they were married in the backyard they continue to share, preparing to take on Paula’s battle against TNBC together.
“We got married that Thursday in the backyard and the following week is when I had surgery. That’s how fast it happened,” Paula said.
She proudly wore her new ring as she met with her MultiCare medical team in Spokane and prepared for the battle ahead against an aggressive triple-negative breast cancer.
“It was joyful, but tearful,” Paula said.
“It’s terrifying because you don’t know what’s going to happen, what the treatments gonna be like, what’s gonna be left, whether they’re gonna pass or be with you,” Carl said.
Less than a year later, Paula got back on her motorcycle, now a triple-negative cancer survivor and an advocate for regular mammogram screening.
“She goes from the minute she gets up until she goes down at night, she’s ‘the deal on wheels,’ Carl said of his wife.
“I can’t say enough that early detection is the whole key, it’s the whole game,” Paula said. “If you don’t get early detection, I don’t think I’d be sitting here.”
Paula said the most rewarding thing for her as a survivor is to encourage everyone to get their mammogram screenings and set themselves up for earlier detection.
“I say ‘have you had your mammogram?’ There were two women that I did that to and that actually went and had a mammogram and they were diagnosed,” Paula said.
This ‘deal on wheels’ also credits her family for helping her through that battle and hopes sharing her story inspires others to make those screening appointments.
MultiCare Health System reports approximately 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in their lifetime, and 1 in 43 will die from the disease.
The American Cancer Society recommends that women between 45 and 54 get mammograms every year.
