Dorothy Gibbs
AUGUST 2026 CALENDAR
I never imagined that I would be here today, sharing my story of resilience, loss, faith and survival. But after everything I’ve been through, I know that my journey isn’t just my own. It belongs to every woman who has fought, every family who has prayed, and every person who has ever faced the fear of hearing the words: You have cancer.
My journey began long before my diagnosis. In the late 1970s, a mobile mammogram van would visit my workplace, offering screenings. Each time I went, trusting the doctors who told me there was nothing to worry about. But one day a technician in the van saw something. No alarms were raised. No action was taken. I was reassured that I was fine.
Years passed. Then, at age 55, everything changed in May 2002. I switched to a new doctor, Anna Trido, a female. I will never forget the moment she examined me and said, “Dorothy, something doesn’t feel right.” My heart pounded. Fear gripped me. I wanted to believe it was nothing, but deep down, I knew. An ultrasound confirmed it was a mass in my left breast. A biopsy followed. Then came the phone call that turned my world upside down. Stage II breast cancer.
I screamed. I cried. And then I fought. I underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy. I was on Tamoxifen until 2008 and when the treatment was over, I was declared cancer-free. I thought my battle had ended. But cancer had other plans.
In June 2015, I heard those words again. This time, the cancer was in my right breast – Stage 3, aggressive, and relentless. I braced myself for another war, but this time, I wasn’t alone. My husband and my aunts stood by me, lifting me up when I felt too weak to stand.
I was treated with adjuvant TCH-pertuzumab and completed carboplatin/doceltaxel in November 2015. I also completed radiotherapy in April 2016. I drove myself to my appointments, but my husband never missed a chemo session. He held my hand through the pain, through the exhaustion, through the fear.
Then, in February 2020, I lost him.
Skin cancer took the man who had walked beside me through my darkest days. The grief was unbearable, but I knew he would have wanted me to keep fighting – to keep living.
For years, I was afraid to share my story. I carried my pain in silence, unsure if my voice mattered. But then, I found Sisters’ Journey. I listened to the stories of other women – warriors just like me – and I realized that our voices do matter. Our stories do matter. Because somewhere, right now, there is a woman who just got the call. A woman who feels the same fear I once felt. And she needs to know: She is not alone.
Today, I am a 24-year cancer survivor. I have survived chemotherapy, radiation, a double mastectomy and the loss of the man I loved. I have retired from my job, but I will never retire from sharing my journey because my survival is not just my own. It is a testimony to faith, to family, to perseverance.
I am still here. Many of the women I sat beside in those treatment rooms are not. I carry their stories with me. I honor them by living, by speaking, by reminding every woman that early detection saves lives, that faith carries us through, and that no one fights alone.