3 years after getting 6 months to live, Hurricane breast cancer survivor has message of hope

Written by Chris Reed
October 21, 2023

ST. GEORGE — It was one day before Gabby Gubler’s 33rd birthday. The Hurricane stay-at-home mom was preparing for a time of celebration with family and tending to her two children. She had never felt healthier.

Gabby Gubler during a breast reconstruction awareness event at St George Regional Hospital’s Cancer Center, St. George, Utah, Oct. 20, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

That celebration and her future changed after she performed a self-exam and found a lump in her breast that felt like a marble. 

Last June, that day’s itinerary turned into a visit to her doctor, a mammogram and, a little later, a diagnosis — stage 4 metastatic breast cancer.

Now 35, Gubler has been cancer-free for two years and was back at her old stomping grounds at St. George Regional Hospital’s Cancer Center Friday with a message of hope and reconstruction during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

“I was only given six months to live, and so knowing where I’m at now, I just have to continue to only look to the future,” Gubler said. “Even on the days that feel like I’m just in mom mode or doing things with my kids, I just have such an appreciation that I get to do those things with my kids and family. I wish when people were first diagnosed, I could be at the door saying like, I don’t care what your diagnosis is. I don’t care how bad they said it is. It’s not over until it’s over.”

Gubler was attending the special event at the Cancer Center for breast reconstruction awareness, with the appropriate acronym , BRA event. The celebration was for breast cancer survivors and education for new options in reconstruction surgery after mastectomies. 

Gubler, whose parents recently retired after owning the Quail Lake Quick Stop for 38 years, her father Kevin Tervort was a Hurricane City Council member for 12 years, acknowledges that practicing the self breast exams recommended by doctors from a young age likely saved her life.

And even though mammograms aren’t recommended for women below 40 years of age, she said it’s important for younger people to realize breast cancer doesn’t discriminate based on age.

Undated 2020 picture of Gabby Gubler with husband Kacen while she was undergoing treatment for cancer, St. George, Utah | Photo courtesy of Intermountain Health, St. George News

“I have absolutely no history of cancer in my family on either side. And so my mom had always just taught me to check, just to be sure,” Gubler said. “I would love to bring awareness to high school students and early teenagers, early 20s, because the truth is we’re not gonna change the age for breast exams. The rapid increase of women and men finding breast cancer in their twenties and thirties is just skyrocketing.”

Gubler observed the decorated bras on display with messages of encouragement for those with breast cancer and survivors. Some were covered in baseball “second base” motifs and others with construction items.

The sense of humor wasn’t lost on Dr. Aaron Klomp, a plastic surgeon with the hospital’s Southern Utah Plastic Surgery center who handled Gubler’s post-cancer reconstructive surgery,.

“There’s a lot of humor involved, which I think is really good,” Klomp said. “For people who do go through something like that … there are several ways to deal with it. Humor is a fun way.”

It was noted that ‘Three’s Company’ actress Suzanne Somers died of breast cancer earlier in the week. Dr. Becky King, with Southern Utah Plastic Surgery, said public figures aren’t the only ones helping to bring awareness for the prevention, treatment and recovery of breast cancer. 

“I think awareness is the biggest thing. And nowadays everybody has been affected by breast cancer in some way,” King said. “A friend, a colleague, a loved one, a sister, a father. So just being aware that that’s out there and the things to do to look for it, to treat, for it to be evaluated and and what that might be like and how that affects their lives is really important.”

While hesitant at first to go through chemotherapy treatments because of the pain she feared it would cause her kids. When Gubler was told not doing so would stretch her six-month prognosis to a year, she agreed to go through with it.

(L-R) Dr. Becky King, Dr. Aaron Klomp, and nurse practitioner Nisha Andersen with Southern Utah Plastic Surgery speak during a breast reconstruction awareness event at St George Regional Hospital’s Cancer Center, St. George, Utah, Oct. 20, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

“I was on the clock and at that point,” she said. “It was June and I just kept thinking, ‘You’ve got to make it to Christmas.’ Like if I can have one last magical moment with my kids.”

It was a tough treatment to end the second half of 2020. The cancer spread to her liver, lymph nodes, and spine. To add insult, her fifth chemotherapy session had to be delayed after she contracted COVID-19. 

In two months, Gubler will enjoy her third-straight cancer-free Christmas with her kids. Now she hopes to spread positive messages to those going through the same fears and worries she previously experienced.

“If I can keep shedding that hope and light to others … just keep going and stay as positive as you can,” Gubler said. “You can do this. Anybody can do this.”

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Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2023, all rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Reed serves as a reporter for St. George News, where he has been honored with several awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for his work, including first-place accolades. He started his journalism career as a sports reporter and editor in Southern California where he once compared shoe sizes with Shaquille O'Neal and exchanged mix tapes with members of the Los Angeles Kings. After growing up in the San Fernando Valley learning karate skills from Mr. Miyagi and spending a decade in Las Vegas mostly avoiding the casinos, he came to St. George for love and married his soulmate, a lifetime Southern Utah resident. He is the proud father of two boys, his youngest a champion against both autism and Type 1 diabetes.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @STGNews

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