Allison Zeltzer

Alison usually feels that somehow this story happened to someone else. At 21 years old, she was diagnosed with stage 3 Carcinosarcoma in her right breast.

Alison underwent eight months of treatment and thought that the nightmare was over on June 13, 2000, a date that she would celebrate almost every year with family and friends.

Fifteen years later, on July 25th, 2014, after a return to Montreal for her annual check up, did this nightmare re-emerge with a second primary diagnosis of Invasive Ductal Caranoma in her left breast, followed by a positive test for the BRCA1 gene.

This time, she was a wife and a mother of two little girls who just started preschool and senior kindergarten.

"I sat down with them at my kitchen table to try to explain why mommy’s hair was going to fall out, how our family will be in and out of our home to help us, and how some of the time, I would just need to rest." - But at the end of the day, what was of upmost importance was that Alison maintained the positive attitude she found 15 years before.

She stayed true to who she was regardless of what she was going through or what she looked like and that her daughters would be able to look back at this moment in time and know that she was a brave, tough, strong willed advocate who persevered and was incredibly grateful for the love and support of everyone around her.