“ Self-lumping of Clea Shearer during the treatment of breast cancer (exclusive)

Clea Shearer is in his house in Nashville, leaning back on a sofa in an ivory curved sofa in a scented living room with pale green hydrangeas and white roses. She smiles, her skin shines and her nails are impeccably maintained.

It is a flawless scene – suitable for a woman who made a name for himself as a co -founder of the organizing empire (and favorite of celebrities) The Home Edit. But the image does not tell the whole story.

Nestled behind his back, hidden in the folds of his sweet pink sweater, two drains collect liquid after his recent surgery – his 13th – for reconstruction after breast cancer. The drains were supposed to be out when she sat for photos, but like a large part of what happened in the last three and a half years since her diagnosis, things have not gone as expected.

“I had photo sessions when I was in chemo. I had photo sessions by radiation, but I never had one with a drain pack attached to my body, ”she says. “I am so distracted by ensuring that no one can see them. But it is my life at this stage. I’m just trying to do it. ”

After discovering that she had stadium breast cancer – and faced with reconstruction complications after her double mastectomy – Shearer, 43, learned to accept the unexpected. “The opening line of my book is:” If you are a person who likes to control things, cancer is not the disease for you, “explains Shearer, who told his trip to his new memories Cancer is complicated (Out September 23, available for pre -order now). “It’s a russian mountain.”

In February 2022, Shearer, from Los Angeles who moved to Nashville with her photographer husband, John, 10 years ago, was very a woman in control.

After she and the best friend Joanna Teplin have pantry for Hollywood friends like Mandy Moore and Christina Applegate, The Home Edit, the organizing company that the two started in 2015, has become a brand in demand, known for its rainbow coding and the storage aesthetics in baccalaureate.

A range of signature products in Walmart followed, with a Netflix show produced by Reese Witherspoon, called, called Organize yourself with the Maison Modifyon which the pair straightened up for Chris Pratt, Khloé Kardashian, Kevin Hart and others. Shearer and Teplin had just announced that the company of Witherspoon, Hello Sunshine, bought their business when Shearer discovered a bump in its right breast.

Learning it was cancer was a “pure terror”, she writes. When doctors discovered that she had an aggressive form of the disease that had spread to her lymph nodes, she suddenly faced months of chemo and radiation before breast reconstruction could begin.

“Because I have work brains all the time, I said to myself:” Oh my God – Hello Sunshine! ” I need them to know that I am not leaving. I really tried to do as much as possible and I quickly realized that I simply could not, ”she said, continuing to work at her normal pace, in particular by turning a television program during the treatment. “Joanna intervened,” explains Shearer, who adds that her friend and partner “kept me alive in many ways. I would go away without her friendship. Said Teplin:” Clea has passed so much, but she faced each game with strength and grace. “”

But, Shearer admits: “We both fought a lot.”

At home, Shearer has also struggled. She waited the day before her first surgical intervention to tell her children Stella, then 11 years old, and knew, then 8 years old, she had cancer: “I didn’t want them to wear the fear.” Stella asked if she would be bald. “I said no – at the time, I didn’t think I would need chemo. This conversation had to be updated. But they were so impressive.”

Her husband, John (“the best human being on the planet and a Blue-Ribbon husband”), was able to reorganize his work as a music and celebrity photographer (he was behind the objective for his photos of the people) by his side, but “Diseases and disease tests.”

When chemo took her once the long black hair, as well as her eyebrows and eyelashes, and steroids made her gain weight, “I had a lot of self-disgust,” she said. “I felt disgusting. I thought I looked like Charlotte’s husband, Harry, Sex and city. John would say, “What are you talking about?” I think you are beautiful. But I was looking in the mirror like: “You can’t think I do it”. “”

At first, she was so embarrassed, she refused to walk in her own house without a scarf or hat. “I thought children would be uncomfortable to see me like that,” she said. “I was drowning to cover myself physically every day.” But the persistent insurance of John and his children “meant so much. It made me more confident. ” Said John: “His resilience has exceeded what anyone could expect.”

As soon as his “fishing fuzz” started to push back, “I said to myself”, that’s all. I have hair, no more wigs. “”

Shortly after her diagnosis, she wanted to share everything, from her hair changes to her insecurity, with the 6 million followers of social media from Home Edit, for the same reason that she decided to write her book: “The only way I knew how to go on this subject was instead of feeling, I helped people.”

However, when she started to publish, she did not know how long it would be a test.

Shortly after her double mastectomy, her skin began to become black – she had developed necrosis. The radiation on his right chest caused thick scars. All of this made reconstruction more difficult. Shearer spent almost two years in and out of the operating rooms – and even found himself in the emergency room for another surgical intervention a week after his people pulls when the liquid began to accumulate after her sewers were finally removed.

She is on her “last blow” for an implant – and she knows that some might wonder why she was going through such trauma to rebuild her breasts. “I now lived three years with compromise breasts. At this point, I am not trying to participate in a swimsuit competition, ”she says. “But for me, there is a real need to go up my body. It is an emotional need more than a physical need.”

Whatever happens, because of cancer, “everything in my life has changed,” she said, adding that the doctors told her that there were 30% of his cancer to come back: “I know that I will continue to fight forever.” But she says that she discovered an inner force: “I didn’t know I could manage so much.”

And that includes the challenge of pose for a photo session of people while recovering from surgery.

“I have limits. I move a little more slowly. I can’t raise my right arm [at the moment]. But we get there, ”explains Shearer, nodding her husband, who earlier this morning had changed her bandages and emptied her drains, as he stops between shots. In addition, she adds with a smile: “John will make me look good!” »»

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