“It felt like the world was crashing. I didn’t know who to think of first. The first thing was my kids who were 2, 5, 9, and 12 at the time. I thought of my husband, Dante. It was sad and devastating.”

Most inspiring stories are not straightforward. There will be an element of suffering and peril and, oftentimes, hopelessness. Ultimately, though, there is catharsis at the end. In this case, there’s dancing.

In March 2019, Attorney Cheryl S. Saldana-de Leon, or “Loy” as she is known, was 40 years old. She knew the advice from most OB-GYNs was to submit yourself to the tests for those of that age. One morning, she felt a lump and knew she had to have it checked. After a battery of tests, it was confirmed she had stage 1B breast cancer.

Surprisingly, Loy shook off the initial reaction immediately and went directly into fight mode. “I was determined to overcome it. I knew lots of success stories. My friend is a breast cancer survivor.” There were a lot of positives in her favor: she was young and strong, it was diagnosed early, most importantly, she had a confident and positive mindset. Still, the fight to follow was very daunting but she knew who she needed to fight for. “Typically the last person you think about is yourself. My instinct is for the kids and Dante. I needed to fight for them.”

After 3 days of thoughtful planning and deliberation with Dante, they came up with a gameplan to attack this head on. She decided when they would tell the kids, their family, and her colleagues. More importantly, they planned when she would have her mastectomy and then start her treatments which would include 8 rounds of chemotherapy, radiation and months of rest.

April 15, 2019 she had a total mastectomy of her right breast. By all accounts, the procedure was completed without complication. However, there was a major incident on her second day of recovery. Loy reads from a statement:

“On the second day of admission, the patient underwent a contemplated procedure which was a mastectomy. And tolerated it well and the patient was cleared and transferred to room of choice. At the floors, while patient was going to the bathroom, she collapsed, felt weakness and was found unresponsive and pulseless. For which Code Blue was called.”

For the few minutes she was gone, she experienced what she would call a near-death experience. “It is what people say: there was a white light and my life flashed before my eyes.”

She had visions mostly of her children like it was a slideshow. In one direction, there was the light, which was calm and peaceful. In the other direction, there was chaos and noise. But from her perspective, however, there was no judgment. “Going one way or the other was neither bad or good.”

She only knew that there was a feeling of peace following the light. Going in the other direction, she could sense all the chaos of the people trying to revive her. She was drawn to the light and as she moved closer to it, scenes from her kids were all around. Nearing the light, the scenery stopped on Sabine who had just turned 2 years old in February. At the sight of her youngest, she was jolted out of her reverie and suddenly heard Dante calling her. He had been calling to her for 5 minutes, shouting her name, begging for her to wake up. Knowing she did not want to leave her family behind, she went away from the light and returned. Dante would not speak of this experience for about a year. She collapsed in his arms and he thought she was gone.

“Everyone says you have to live your life to the fullest, but what does that really mean?”

Most of the rest of 2019 and parts of 2020 were spent alternating between treatment and treating herself. After her mastectomy, she took a family trip. After her 8th cycle of chemo, she celebrated the end of the treatment with another trip. After her 30 days of radiation, she took another trip to celebrate its end. Every victory was celebrated for the triumph it represented: a step closer to a full life.

As odd as it sounds, she was fortunate to have the conclusion of her treatments and the celebratory trips coincide with the start of the COVID pandemic. Her doctors said had she needed to go through her treatments during the pandemic, she would have had the difficulty of finding a facility to have her treatments on top of the added danger of being immunocompromised during an unknown virus outbreak.

The pandemic provided a window for her to do a reset while her condition gave her the extra motivation. “I had to rearrange my priorities to make time for health. I got into yoga, training, exercising. The most effective exercise, though, was dancing.” Loy danced ballet until she was 16. Sadly, the rigors of training became too much. “It sucked all the fun out of it.” But now, she re-discovered her love of dance in the form of dance fitness that has brought her immense joy. “It doesn’t feel like work. It is fun. It’s about exercise, about bonding.” As with many during COVID times, she developed her fandom of BTS and through her dance classes, learned their very difficult choreography and became fully immersed in the K-Pop world (She even went to L.A. to see BTS for their SoFi stadium concert series November 2021!)

“Anything can be taken away from you in a moment, in an instant.”

Her battle with breast cancer has given her new insight into what her life means and what she wants to make out of it. There is a greater understanding that the time that we have is borrowed time and whatever we are doing, we have to do the best of our ability. “Whatever you choose to devote your time, you have to give 100% effort. You chose to devote your time to THIS ridiculous thing. I’m very aware that we don’t have the luxury of time. I thought that, in that recovery period, I was already out of danger. I almost died and it wasn’t even the cancer that would have taken me.”

As she moves forward with her life, she’s learned to say ‘no’ to a lot of things and to devote her time to things that really matter. Admittedly, it’s a struggle sometimes but a struggle she is winning. Loy was always the most cheerful person you would meet. Always smiling, never sour. Her pleasant disposition is her default. Before cancer, she says she was a solid 7 or 8 every day, which, for most of us, is very good. Post-cancer, she says she wakes up really happy, excited for the day. “Now, I can honestly say, I wake up every morning super excited for the day even if it’s a tough day. Just the fact that you are around. I guess it takes some kind of experience to appreciate it. I still feel very grateful and excited for life and I’m at 10. 9.5 on very busy days.”

Tragedy focused her life into the things that mattered most to her: Dante and her kids. She loves her life because she loves the things in her life. She has filled her days with the things most important to her and she walks through her days smiling bigger, feeling happier and with a skip in her step. Actually, it’s no longer a walk. Life has become an arm-flailing, foot-switching, hip-thrusting dance. (Interview and write-up by: Zeus “Earl” Roy D. Custodio Jr.)