The Educator Who Fought Cancer With Chalk in One Hand and Courage in the Other

Alyson never felt a lump. No warning signs. No clue.

It was May 2022 when the nurse from the PCPS Mammogram Bus called—twice—urging her to follow up with her doctor. “That’s when I realized something was probably wrong,” she recalls. “But I still wasn’t prepared for what they found.”

Four masses. One was cancer.

The words “You have breast cancer” didn’t come from a doctor at first—they came from her MyChart app. “I opened it at home, on a Sunday,” she says. “By the time my doctor confirmed it, my husband almost passed out. And my first thought was, ‘How do I tell my sons?’”

Alyson was diagnosed with Stage 1 HER2+ invasive ductal carcinoma. She had no symptoms. No family history. No experience with cancer. What she did have was a classroom full of students depending on her, and a deep resolve to keep life as normal as possible.

So she did what seemed impossible to many:
She kept teaching.

“I needed the distraction,” she says. “Teaching gave me something to focus on that wasn’t cancer. It reminded me who I was before the diagnosis—and who I still wanted to be.”

That year, Alyson worked through 6 rounds of TCHP chemo, a lumpectomy, radiation, 11 rounds of Kadcyla, and the start of five years of hormone therapy. She did it all while showing up, day after day, for her students in Polk County Public Schools.

But even heroes need lifelines.

For Alyson, one of them showed up on day one of chemo. “I met my ‘chemo angel’ during my first treatment—she was starting her second battle with ovarian cancer.”  She saw my tears as I sat down to begin my fight, asked if she could pray for me and my husband, and from that day on, I knew “God’s got me,” and my chemo angel and I kept in touch often. 

Social media groups also became a critical source of knowledge and emotional grounding. “I joined Facebook groups with women doing the same treatments I was. We shared advice, side effects, tips—everything. That support helped me prepare for what was coming and feel less alone.”

Still, some things caught her off guard. “I’d never had surgery before. I didn’t even know what a port was,” she says. “The fear of the unknown was real—and it still is, when I think about recurrence.”

Her strategy? Stay busy. “I threw myself into my work, into life. I kept going because I had to.”

But beneath the grit and focus, there was grief.

“During treatment, I met some incredible people. Two of the three friends I made in the infusion room have since passed away. Processing that while trying to recover has been harder than I ever expected.”

The hardest part, she says, isn’t always the chemo or the surgery. It’s what comes after.

“When treatment ends, you’re not the same person who started. You have to figure out who you are now—and that’s a different kind of hard.”

These days, Alyson’s finding moments of softness and self-kindness. She gets regular mani/pedis now—something she never used to do. She scrapbooks. She plans trips to places she’s never been, whenever she can. She celebrates the little things more.

And she’s still in the classroom—33 years strong.

Cancer changed her, but not in all the ways people expect. “I don’t sweat the small stuff like I used to,” she says. “I’m calmer. I value time more—with my family, my friends, and my recovery puppy, Finn.”

Alyson found BCFCF through Facebook and quickly felt a connection to the survivor community. “Even though I didn’t receive financial assistance, I felt emotionally supported. That mattered.”

Now she wants to give back. She’s already thinking about mentoring other survivors, volunteering at events, and even launching a “Pink” fundraiser at her school each year to benefit local families.

Her advice for others just starting the fight?

👉 Journal your symptoms.

👉 Join support groups with people walking the same path.

👉 Take it one day, one appointment at a time.

Her mantra: Faith over Fear.
Her guilty pleasure? Scrapbooking and travel.
Her dream? Turning her battle into someone else’s lifeline.

“If I could change one thing,” she says, “it would be how we talk about breast cancer. People say things like ‘At least you get a free boob job’ to women who’ve had mastectomies. That’s not okay. We need to educate people on truly supporting someone through this.”

Alyson isn’t just surviving—she’s leading by example. She is living proof that strength can look like showing up with lesson plans in one hand and courage in the other.