It's the two words no woman wants to hear from their doctor: "breast cancer."
For Paula Sue Russell, it's the news she expected to hear her whole life. Breast cancer runs in her family.
"My maternal grandmother had breast cancer when I was very little, probably 3 to 5 years old," she said. "It didn't hit home, but mom talked about it. Then, my dad's mom, my paternal grandmother, had it when I was a teenager. I was about 15, so that did hit home."
Due to her family history, she's always gotten an annual mammogram. In 2021, her doctor found what Russell thought was a skin tag, a cancerous pea-sized white dot.
Russell, being a former nurse herself, faced her diagnosis head-on. She went straight to Lee Health's Cancer Institute, and they provided her with nurse navigators.
Liz Bachoo-Garib was Paula's breast health navigator, someone Paula could turn to for extra help.
"You make this connection, this human connection, with somebody," Bachoo-Garib said. "It's not just a patient-staff provider relationship. You know their family, you know their friends, you know their deepest fears."
Bachoo-Garib said because of Russell's experience as a nurse, she knew what was happening and what she needed. However, she became Russell's real support system.
Russell is in remission, and said she feels good physically. Although, she said it's still a battle mentally.
"We call ourselves NED's — 'no evidence of disease' — because, yes, we've survived cancer, but are we really free?" she said. "Mentally, we're not really free."
She uses her relationships with her nurse navigators and her own joy to get through the difficult times.
"My parents always taught me and my grandparents that if you smile, the world smiles back at you," she said. "So I do."