In Autumn of 2016, a 40 year old DeShonjla “Shonni” Peterson discovered a lump in her breast and shortly after, on November 22, 2016, she got diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer which was during breast cancer awareness month.
Fast forward to the day she was scheduled to have a double mastectomy, DeShonjla found out she was pregnant! Left with two choices, her breast surgeon suggested she either terminate the pregnancy and treat the cancer or continue with the pregnancy and delay treatment.
DeShonjla and her husband Kevin made the decision to protect their unborn child. So they kept the pregnancy.
At week 20 of her pregnancy, on April 7, DeShonjla had a single mastectomy. In her words:
“If I did the bilateral and with reconstruction my baby would be under anesthesia for close to 5 hours and I couldn’t risk that so I went with the lesser of the evils and only had one removed”.
On Monday the 31st of July 2017, DeShonjla welcomed a healthy baby girl, Zoe Jade. Talking about her new baby, she said: “I couldn’t be more ecstatic to meet her”
DeShonjla has since started chemotherapy after she was able to nurse her daughter for about three weeks.
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