By Kristine Hansen, Nikki Kallio, Shayna Mace and Jessica Steinhoff | Photography by Hillary Schave unless noted
Failure, cancer, loss, trauma — all are devastating setbacks. Five women share how they were able to come to terms with life-altering changes, and push forward.
I Was Changed Because of Cancer
The last thing Diane Anderson expected to hear in 2002 was that she had breast cancer — at 44, she was an active and otherwise healthy mother of three girls. Nor did she expect that it was just the beginning of her health concerns: In 2013, doctors found a “suspicious” spot on her lung, and in 2023 she developed a four-centimeter meningioma — a benign but potentially cancerous brain tumor — which required an eight-hour surgery to remove.
Trauma Turned My Life Around
Growing up on Chicago’s South Side, Jevon Diming experienced generational trauma: several cousins were killed by gun violence and her nephew, Pierre, was a victim of gun violence.
How I Live With Unimaginable Loss
Kristin Keir never thought on a sunny morning last September that it would be the last time she would see her partner, Dax Bakken, alive.
Once Homeless, Now I’m Prospering
After being stalked in Milwaukee as retaliation for reporting a sexual assault of a family member, Lai’Kita Buie knew she could no longer raise her three children there.
How I Thrived After Business Failure
Figure skating taught me how to recover from failure,” says Natasha Vora, CEO of the Madison-based eyewear company Optical X. By the time she turned pro at age 16, she’d fallen — and gotten up — thousands of times. This served her well when she was denied acceptance to UW–Madison’s business school.
