When the Clock Struck Midnight

The Night Everything Changed

When the clock strikes midnight in Cinderella, everything changes.

The carriage disappears.

The dress fades away.

Reality sets in.

That’s exactly what my cancer diagnosis felt like.

One minute I was living in the grand ideas I had created for my life… success, goals, career moves, family, blessings, ambition, dreams I had been chasing since I was a little girl. Then suddenly, it felt like midnight struck and I was running barefoot emotionally from the chaos of my new reality.

I have cancer.

Even typing those words still feels unreal.

I remember being frustrated with my emotions because honestly, I felt abandoned by God. I questioned everything. The disbelief was overwhelming. I felt like death had suddenly entered the room and sat beside me.

The thing is, death wasn’t new to me.

The first real experience I ever had with it happened when I was only 24 years old when I lost my mom to breast cancer.

And honestly? Come on. The first time I ever experience death and it’s my mom? My best friend?

No seriously… my BEST friend.

We talked every single day. I did her hair, makeup, nails. My dad would laugh and say,

“Your mom stops at your house before she even comes home.”

And now looking back, gosh… how I wish I could relive those ordinary moments one more time. How differently I would appreciate them knowing they wouldn’t last forever.

It’s been 11 years since I lost her.

Did I know there was still a possibility I could get breast cancer too? Of course. But I truly believed I had somehow escaped it because both my mom and I tested negative for BRCA1 and BRCA2.

That just goes to show you… life does whatever it wants sometimes.

Cancer doesn’t always ask permission.

It doesn’t always follow statistics.

And it definitely doesn’t care about your plans.

And trust me… I had plans.

I’ve always been the girl with big goals.

When I was 11 years old, I got this little dream book from the Scholastic Book Fair. It had a silver cover with stars on it and black cardboard paper inside. I wrote in it using a silver gel pen like it was the most important document on earth.

One of the prompts asked:

“What talent do you wish you had?”

And I embarrassingly wrote:

“To sing like Mariah Carey.”

Honestly, that must’ve been my Filipino side because my karaoke song was ALWAYS “Hero.” I was fully convinced I was going to hit those notes one day.

But nowhere in that dream book did I write:

“I want to climb the corporate ladder.”

Yet somehow, that became my life.

I said yes to every opportunity, every promotion, every challenge thrown at me.

At 16 years old, I secretly applied for my first job at JCPenney without even asking my parents because I already knew the answer would be no. There was no way they were going to let me go to high school and then borrow the car to work a real job after.

But I did it anyway.

I still remember walking in and handing the manager my resume. He offered me the job on the spot and I was ecstatic.

And this may sound weird… but the smell of retail still makes me happy to this day.

My dad laughs at me for this, but it’s true.

Then one day while working there, I saw it.

Sephora inside JCPenney.

I already loved clothes, but makeup, skincare, perfume, beauty? That felt like magic to me. I knew immediately I wanted to work there. The only problem was you had to be 18 years old.

So I waited.

I worked for it.

And eventually I earned my spot.

I still remember putting on that black outfit with makeup brushes strapped to my side like weapons for war thinking:

“I made it.”

That job changed me because it taught me beauty was deeper than appearances. It was confidence. Energy. Self-expression. Transformation.

But eventually my ambitions got bigger.

I was in college pursuing dentistry because since I was 11 years old, I had dreamed of becoming a dentist and one day opening a medical beauty spa.

My dad always imagined I’d own some giant stand-alone building with multiple floors offering different beauty and wellness services. He even had the name planned out already:

“De La Beauty.”

So my next move became obvious.

Ulta Beauty.

And honestly? That job was FUN. I learned operations, leadership, customer experience, structure, systems… everything that creates an incredible consumer experience. I was promoted three different times there before realizing:

Okay Shanae… time to get serious about the dentist dream again.

That’s when I applied to become an office manager at a dental office.

Talk about culture shock.

The beauty world and dental world could not have been more different. But somehow the regional manager saw something in me immediately and knew I was the right fit.

She was right.

Within my first year, I grew one office from averaging around 100k a month to eventually producing close to 500k monthly.

Then came more promotions.

5 offices.

Then 10 offices across Florida and Georgia.

Then suddenly it felt like NFL draft season and I was being recruited for bigger territories:

Ohio.

New Jersey/Pennsylvania.

Chicago.

I chose New Jersey/Pennsylvania because it aligned best with my husband’s film and photography career.

So in 2023, for the first time ever, we packed up our entire lives and left Florida together as a family.

And I thrived there.

Over the next two years, I opened 32 brand-new offices from the ground up. Highest scorecards. Top EBITDA. Top patient experience metrics. I was proud of myself.

For once, I felt like all the hustle had paid off.

Until the lump showed up.

11 o’clock position.

Right breast.

And just like that…

midnight struck.