Jennie Vargas’s Story

How did you find your breast cancer?

Jennie did not have a family history of breast cancer.

She was not checking herself regularly, and at the time, she did not really know how to do a breast self-exam.

Then one night, while lying in bed, she rolled over and felt pressure near her heart.

She found a lump.

“It was big,” Jennie remembers. “And I said to myself, oh my God, how did I not feel this?”

She went to Stuart Medical Group and had a biopsy at Norwood Hospital.

Even before the results came back, Jennie says she knew.

“In my heart, I knew that I had breast cancer,” she says. “I knew.”

When she walked into the room for her biopsy, she remembers seeing everyone’s faces.

“Everyone’s faces were so down and gloomy,” she says. “I was just like, where am I? I already knew that I had it.”

 

What was it like to receive the diagnosis?

Jennie remembers the phone call clearly.

She had just gotten home from work and was opening her mail when her primary care doctor called with the results.

“I’m sorry, but you have breast cancer,” the doctor told her.

After that, Jennie could not hear much else.

“All I heard was I had breast cancer,” she says. “I didn’t hear anything else.”

She thinks the doctor may have said something about connecting her with a surgeon, but in that moment, her mind went somewhere else entirely.

Her children.

“All I thought was, what am I going to tell my children?” Jennie says.

As a single mother, that was the first fear that came to her. She had raised her children on her own, and suddenly she was faced with a question no parent ever wants to ask.

“If something were to happen to me, what would they do?”

Even saying the words felt impossible.

“Breast cancer coming out of my mouth?” Jennie says. “I couldn’t even say it.”

 

How did breast cancer change your perspective?

Breast cancer forced Jennie to look closely at her life.

When the thought of dying entered her mind, everything else became clearer.

“When you have the thought in your head, ‘I could die,’ nothing else really matters but your happiness,” she says.

Jennie realized that there were parts of her life where she was not truly happy. She knew something needed to change.

“I had come to terms that I needed to change my life because I want to be happy,” she says. “I need to change my life because I have to be happy.”

That realization became part of her healing.

Breast cancer did not just change Jennie physically. It changed the way she thought about her time, her choices, and the life she wanted to build on the other side of treatment.

 

What helped you keep going?

Jennie has always been someone who gets back up.

No matter what life has put in front of her, she has kept moving.

“I always get back up, no matter what,” she says.

Her faith also carried her.

Jennie believed that God had a plan for her, even in the hardest moments of treatment. She believed she had to get through breast cancer to understand more fully what she was meant to do with her life.

“I knew that God had a plan for me,” she says, “and I had to get through this to really find out what I’m supposed to do in life.”

That belief helped Jennie keep going, even when the fear was heavy and the future felt uncertain.

 

Why did you want to walk the Runway?

Jennie wanted to walk the Runway because she feels blessed to be alive.

After everything she went through, walking felt like a celebration of survival, strength, and the life she still gets to live.

“I feel so blessed to be alive,” Jennie says.

She also walks with a deep awareness of those who did not get the same chance.

“I want to live for those who couldn’t,” she says.

For Jennie, treatment also became a turning point. Through chemotherapy, she began to see herself and her body differently.

“I feel like through chemo I got a fresh new body,” she says.

She stopped smoking. She started focusing more on her happiness. She began moving toward the life she knew she wanted and deserved.

“Now I just want to concentrate on being happy,” Jennie says.

 

What are we celebrating this year?

This year, we are celebrating Jennie’s life, strength, faith, and joy.

We are celebrating the mother who kept going for her children, the woman who chose to change her life in pursuit of happiness, and the survivor who feels deeply blessed to still be here.

Jennie’s story is a reminder to listen to your body, to keep getting back up, and to remember that life after breast cancer can still hold purpose, gratitude, and new beginnings.

On the Runway stage, we are honored to celebrate Jennie as she walks for herself, for her children, and for those who could not.