The Bounce Black Team
Each October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month typically emphasises early detection, treatment, and stories of survival.
But what happens after the pink ribbons fade, when the treatments are over and survivors are left to navigate life beyond cancer?
For many, that’s when a new and often overlooked journey begins.
This October, we’re revisiting the powerful Candid Conversation featuring Dr. Sheri Prentiss on our YouTube channel.
Dr Sheri is a breast cancer survivor, physician, and Patient Champion for ImpediMed, and in the interview she offers a deeply human perspective on what it truly means to survive.
Her story is one of resilience and a journey involving post-traumatic growth and using personal pain to inspire systemic change.
This blog is a taste of what you can expect to hear in the full interview: Surviving Isn’t the End: The Hidden Struggle After Breast Cancer
Rethinking What It Means to “Survive”
Dr. Sheri challenges the traditional view of survivorship as the simple act of living beyond cancer.
For her, survivorship is an unpredictable terrain. One that brings new physical, emotional, and financial hurdles.
People think remission means the end, but survivorship is its own stage of care. It needs the same urgency, compassion, and coordination as treatment itself.
Her perspective reframes survivorship not as closure, but as continuation, a stage deserving of dedicated care, empathy, and infrastructure.
The Hidden Toll of Lymphedema
Among those ongoing challenges is breast cancer–related lymphedema (BCRL), which is a chronic and sometimes career-altering condition that affects one in five survivors.
Dr. Sheri’s life was forever changed when lymphedema developed in her surgical hand, ending her clinical career as a physician.
What could have been the end of her story became the beginning of a new mission: to ensure no one else would be blindsided by a preventable condition. She recently spoke with Oncology Times about why lymphedema screenings must become standard of care—further underscoring her mission to protect and empower survivors.
Her experience is a sobering reminder that survival can come with invisible scars, and that awareness and early detection can make all the difference in the trajectory of a life.
Turning Adversity Into Advocacy
Losing the ability to practice medicine forced Dr. Sheri to rebuild her identity. But rather than retreat, she reimagined her purpose—founding the LIVE Today Foundation and dedicating her work to education, equity, and empowerment for survivors everywhere.
LIVE stands for Love, Inspire, Voice, and Enjoy—a reflection of her belief that survivorship isn’t just about not losing one’s life, but also that it’s about not losing one’s ability to meaningfully live.
Healing Doesn’t Stop at Remission
As both a doctor and a patient, Dr. Sheri believes medical education must evolve to include survivorship care. “We train physicians to save lives,” she argues, “but not to sustain them.”
She argues that every clinician, regardless of specialty, should be equipped to have honest, compassionate conversations about long-term quality of life, not just treatment outcomes.
The Cost of Silence
For too long, silence has surrounded conditions like lymphedema.
Many clinicians avoid discussing it, worried about discouraging patients. But Dr. Sheri insists that silence is not kindness, it’s neglect.
“Patients deserve honesty wrapped in hope,” she says. When we tell the truth, we empower people to prepare, not to panic.
Her approach blends medical transparency with human empathy—a balance that could redefine how survivorship is taught, discussed, and supported.
The Economic Reality
Lymphedema isn’t just a medical issue, it’s an equity issue.
Survivors living with the condition face 122% higher monthly medical costs, often paying hundreds of dollars out of pocket for compression garments and ongoing care.
Through the LIVE Today Foundation, Dr. Sheri works to close this gap, providing free compression garments to survivors who otherwise couldn’t afford them. Access to care, she reminds us, should never depend on income or insurance.
Prevention Is Possible
Perhaps the most hopeful part of Dr. Sheri’s message is this: lymphedema can often be prevented or managed early with modern tools like bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS).
“We don’t lack the tools,” she says. “We lack the will to use them.”
With greater awareness and policy change, baseline lymphedema screenings could become as routine as mammograms, helping survivors not just survive, but reclaim their lives fully.
A New Vision for Survivorship
Dr. Sheri Prentiss’ story is one of radical empathy, courage, and reform. Her advocacy reminds us that awareness is merely the beginning, and that survivorship deserves its own movement for justice, dignity, and care.
To every survivor navigating life after cancer: your journey matters. You deserve not only to survive, but to LIVE.
Follow Dr. Sheri’s work as she shows you how to do that!
Watch the full interview on YouTube: Surviving Isn’t the End: The Hidden Struggle After Breast Cancer
Learn more about the LIVE Today Foundation: live-today.org
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