Becky Read’s Story

Becky’s Tips for a Post-Treatment Party:

1. Start with a name no one will forget: “Becky Got a New Rack.”
2. Wear the shirt that says it all: “Yeah, they’re fake. The real ones tried to kill me.”
3. Turn chemo photos into wine labels.
4. Serve Red Devil Jell-O shots in syringes.
5. Add a band, a slip and slide, and everyone who helped you get to the other side.

 

Where were you when we last heard from you?

When Becky last shared her story with Runway in 2023, she was coming out of breast cancer treatment and stepping onto the stage for the first time.

Her diagnosis had come after one of the most exhausting chapters of her life. Becky spent all of 2020 working as an emergency room nurse during the height of the pandemic. After a year of stress, uncertainty, and caring for others, she entered 2021 hoping life was finally starting to feel normal again.

That feeling did not last long.

After receiving the COVID vaccine, Becky had an adverse reaction that prompted doctors to order a CT scan of her chest. The scan revealed a lump in her left breast.

“I went to the hospital for one thing, and now I’m leaving hearing I have a lump,” she says.

At first, she was told not to worry. The radiologist thought it was likely a cyst. But about three weeks later, Becky was diagnosed with stage 1B breast cancer. Though it was found early, it was grade three out of three—an aggressive form of the disease.

She was 39 years old, with no family history of breast cancer and no known genetic mutation.

“It came out of the blue,” she says. “I wasn’t even old enough for a mammogram.”

Even from the beginning, Becky knew she was not facing it alone. She credits her family, friends, coworkers, and husband with helping carry her through the hardest parts of treatment.

“I feel so fortunate I had such a great support system,” she said in 2023. “I had so many great family and friends. My husband insisted on coming to every treatment with me. My friends threw me an amazing benefit, and my daughter came home from college to surprise me.”

For Becky, that kind of support showed her something she still carries with her.

“It really shows, when tragedy hits, how loved you are and how many people care about you.”

 

How did you find out it was cancer?

After her mammogram, Becky remembers being brought back into the waiting room and knowing something was wrong.

“I was like, this is not good,” she says.

She was scheduled for a biopsy the day after Thanksgiving and asked to meet with a breast care nurse practitioner before the holiday. Because Becky works in medicine, she understood what that likely meant.

Then, while she was at work, the nurse practitioner called.

“She said, ‘When I saw your results, I couldn’t let you find out that you had cancer on a portal,’” Becky remembers.

That call began everything.

 

What did treatment look like for you?

Becky went through eight rounds of three different types of chemotherapy. After chemotherapy, she had surgery to test her lymph nodes, which came back negative. She then underwent a nearly 12-hour double mastectomy with PAP flap reconstruction, which uses tissue from the thighs to reconstruct the breasts.

“First time in my life I did not have enough fat on my belly for them to take it from my abdomen,” she jokes. “Go figure.”

Since then, Becky has had several additional reconstruction surgeries.

“I’m over the surgery, girl,” she says. “Not gonna lie to you, I’m over the surgery.”

 

What helped you get through treatment?

Becky had a huge support system. Her friends and coworkers even threw her a benefit to help financially while she was going through treatment.

“Over 400 people showed up,” she says. “People had to drive away because there wasn’t parking.”

The experience was overwhelming in the best way, but also eye-opening.

“It took me getting cancer to realize how much I meant to so many people,” she says. “Why don’t we just say this in our everyday life?”

Becky also found comfort in the unexpected things people gave her—especially one gift from a former coworker.

“My personal favorite was colored pencils and a coloring book that had profanities in it,” she says. “I would sit there and color the worst words you could imagine.”

For Becky, it was a way to let out the anger, frustration, and loneliness that came with cancer.

 

How did you handle losing your hair?

Becky wanted control over something in a season where so much felt out of her hands.

Before losing her hair, she first got a short haircut she never would have had the courage to try otherwise. Then, on New Year’s Eve, she gathered her family and closest friends.

“My husband shaved my head,” she says. “Because I wanted some control.”

It became a moment of taking something back before cancer could take it from her.

 

How did you celebrate finishing treatment?

In true Becky fashion, she threw herself a party.

The name: “Becky Got a New Rack.”

“It was very empowering to be like, okay, I’m done,” she says. “I’ve done everything I was told to do.”

The party had a band, a slip and slide, red devil Jell-O shots in syringes, piñatas, and wine bottles with custom labels made from the photos Becky took before each round of chemo.

Her shirt read: “Yeah, they’re fake. The real ones tried to kill me.”

For Becky, humor was not about minimizing what she had been through. It was about reclaiming joy after months of fear, sickness, and survival.

“I throw the best parties,” she says.

What happened after your own treatment ended?

After Becky found out she was in remission, cancer continued to affect her family.

Her aunt was diagnosed with endometrial cancer, and Becky went with her to her oncology appointment, using what she had learned from her own experience to help ask questions. Her aunt later learned she was stage four.

That same year, Becky’s mother was diagnosed with what doctors initially believed was thymus cancer. After surgery, they discovered it was actually primary mediastinal synovial sarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer.

Becky’s aunt passed away in June. Her mother passed away in September.

 

Why did you want to return to Runway this year?

Becky first walked with Runway after treatment, and she remembers it as a moment of closure for herself.

Now, she is returning for a different kind of closure.

“I just feel like I need to do this again,” she says. “I need closure with their stories.”

For Becky, walking this year is about honoring her mother and aunt, while also recognizing the complicated grief of surviving cancer when people you love did not.

“It’s a hard thing when you have cancer and other people have cancer, and you survive and they don’t,” she says.

Her mother was proud of her when she walked the first time, and Becky hopes that this time, she will somehow feel her with her again.

“I just hope that she sees me walking, knowing that I miss her and I love her.”

On the Runway stage, Becky carries more than her own story. We celebrate her strength and survival, while honoring the mother and aunt she wishes were still here beside her.