Former Chiefs Cheerleader Overcomes Breast Cancer for Son

Brandy Reed began wearing pink as a supporter, but now she wears it as a survivor

By Nicole Feyh
KCChiefs.com

If it was ever a choice before, Brandy Reed never saw it as one.

“I had to fight because my baby deserves a mommy.”

After all, breastfeeding her son, Jaxson, was the reason she discovered the lump in the first place. He’s also the reason she never takes a moment with him for granted.

Brandy underwent a bilateral mastectomy on March 5 after being diagnosed with breast cancer in February, when her son was only four months old.

The procedure was grueling, especially for a new wife and mother who imagined her life heading in any other direction than this.

And for the next eight weeks, Brandy couldn’t so much as lift her arms, let alone hold her own child.

“I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t take care of my son,” Brandy said, “but I literally couldn’t. I had treatments on Thursdays and by Saturday, all I could do was sleep and eat.”

Through the help of her and her husband’s family, Brandy began the road to recovery, starting with a surgery that left her bedridden. She would undergo 16 treatments total in two rounds of chemotherapy over the next four months.

“My first four treatments were pretty tough,” Brandy recalled. “They kind of knocked me on my butt. I’m a very energetic person, so for me to be down in the dumps was difficult.”

Inspired by the life she created, Brandy began the road to recovery.

Her treatments ended in early September, one week before Jaxson turned 1.

“There are so many times in the day where I stop and think that six months ago I didn’t think I’d be here,” she said. “Time is just invaluable to me. I want to make an effort to connect with my friends, make those memories with my family.

“Tomorrow is not promised to anyone. I know it’s so cliché to say, but when you’ve literally had your life flash before your eyes, you take things one day at a time and you appreciate people and situations in your life so much more.”

But before she was a survivor, Brandy’s life had already been deeply affected by cancer.

Brandy grew up in St. Louis and began dancing around the age of 4 with tap and ballet. Dance became her first love, especially through the passing of her father to lung cancer when she was 15.

Six years later, when she was in college, her mother would be diagnosed with breast cancer, adding to the list of women in her family with the disease.

“When my mom was diagnosed, the fear of having [breast cancer] kind of flashed in my mind and my thoughts,” she remembers. “But I was so focused on her getting healthy and me not losing another parent to this disease that I didn’t linger on it for long. I thought about it but I just couldn’t focus on me.”

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