Twenty-three-year-old Cheyann Shaw spent three years sculpting her body in the gym and posting pictures of her gains on Instagram. Now, she’s posting a different kind of progress shot.
The bodybuilder is battling Stage 4 low-grade serous ovarian cancer, a hard-to-beat form of the disease that develops slowly and is often resistant to chemotherapy.
The illness, and its treatment, has taken a toll on her body. She’s dropped down to 102 pounds on her 5-foot-5 frame, and lost her ovaries, spleen, appendix and some of her colon in an attempt to banish tumors. Shaw, who had amassed a following on Instagram with gym pics in the past, is displaying it all on social media.
“I wanted to show people what cancer does to a body”
- Cheyann Shaw
“I decided to document everything right after I got diagnosed because I wanted to show people what cancer does to a body,” Shaw tells the Washington Post.
Shaw says she wants to raise awareness of ovarian cancer.
“I’m literally showing you guys everything just so everybody is more aware of ovarian cancer because they do call it ‘the silent killer,’ ” she says in a YouTube video.
Shaw has posted shots of her thin body, a video of her head being shaved and everyday pictures of life with cancer to her Instagram account, which has ballooned to 210,000 followers. Since her diagnosis, doctors discovered cancer in her spleen and lymph nodes. But she says she’ll tackle the disease with the same strength she used to display in the gym.
“I will never stop fighting. I will never lose my faith. I will never let cancer win,” she captioned an Instagram post. “I have a hard time looking at myself in the mirror but I’m learning to love myself again and I know this is only temporary. Once I get the clear light to workout, I’ll be in the gym banging those weights.”