Kindness Lights Her Way: Robin Spears is Making the Best of Each Day

One important benefit of the relationships that GBMC oncologists develop with their patients is that visits truly are visits. When they meet with their oncologists to discuss how they’re doing physically, patients often relax and talk about the non-cancer parts of their lives. 

In August 2025, during her one-year follow up, Robin Spears was chatting with her oncologist, Robert B. Donegan, MD, Chief of GBMC’s Division of Medical Oncology. She mentioned that her golf swing was causing her pain. She talked with her primary care physician about it, and the X-Ray they ordered found nothing wrong. 

A year earlier, Robin completed a 5-year course of Tamoxifen after a recurrence of breast cancer. Patients taking Tamoxifen typically enjoy a high success rate; there was only a 9% chance of recurrence in Robin’s case. But when she described pain in her ribs and back during golfing, Dr. Donegan ordered a nuclear bone scan “just to be on the safe side.” After bone scan results came back, a PET scan was ordered. Those results confirmed the bad news that her breast cancer had returned and metastasized. “It was a shocker that it was back,” Robin recalls. 

Robin’s breast cancer journey began in 2008 with a lumpectomy. When it returned in 2017, she had a mastectomy. This time, chemotherapy and radiation therapy started right away. Accepting the diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer and its implications was hard but telling her adult children was harder. She has always been dedicated to caring for others, yet cancer has taught Robin she needs to care for herself, too. 

“I have tightened my circle,” she says, “while I focus on taking care of myself. I talk about my cancer journey with the hopes that I can help others. I ask people not to cry for me because I can’t fix how they are feeling. My focus has to be clear and straight forward.” 

Robin was raised in faith, and she is finding now that her relationship with God is stronger than ever. “At first, I really struggled with the diagnosis,” she says, “but I prayed about it, A lot.” Then it came to her: “I realized, ‘maybe I’m here for a reason.’ I am here to serve, to let God lead me, to be kind and a light to others.” In practice, that means “I have to make the best of every day that I have,” she says. 

Robin manages the impact of chemotherapy from one treatment to the next, keeping up with her golf group and volunteer responsibilities on her good days. Most of all, she treasures the love of husband Allen and their family. Without their love and support, she says she would be lost.

Another source of strength has been the professionalism, kindness and caring attitude of everyone at the Sandra & Malcolm Berman Cancer Institute, especially the team at the Herman & Walter Samuelson Infusion Center. An artist, Robin paints and sculpts in clay. She has found ways to thank her care team by sharing the joy she gets from art with them. She hosted two paint nights for the staff. Director of Outpatient Infusion Dawn Stefanik says the nurses had a wonderful time. 

Few of us have the reminder of our mortality that Robin Spears is carrying. We can learn from her approach. “When people tell me they’re praying for me,” she says, “I thank them and I say, ‘Pray for a cure.’ Not only will it help me, but it will help so many others.” 

“I can’t fix the world, but I can be caring and kind.”