DRAPER, Utah — Cherie Young and her daughter Ashley Nay say they’re a real life version of Gilmore Girls’ mother-daughter duo Lorelai and Rory — close knit best friends.
“That’s so us,” Young and Nay said, almost in unison.
Because when you’re going through something difficult, it’s important to have your support team surround and walk with you.
And over the last year, Young went on one of the toughest journeys that no one wants to go through.
“It didn’t hurt,” she said. “It was just a lump that was just never there before.”
A breast cancer diagnosis that came seemly out of nowhere — not from hormones or the BRCA gene. It just simply happened.
“You know you always worry about cancer,” Young said. “It’s always a fear.”
—Watch: Breast cancer patient finds hope in more ways than one—
Nay said once her mom found the lump, she was adamant that they get an appointment immediately.
“On paper, she shouldn’t have breast cancer,” Nay said.
The duo, along with Young's husband, the rest of the family and friends, walked with her as she went through ultrasounds, biopsies and eventually two rounds of chemo.
Young said the first round was tolerable, but it made her tired and bones hurt like never before.
The second round, however, was more difficult.
“They call it the red devil and now I know why,” she said. “It’s awful.”
During round two, Nay said her mom went from being the life of the party to struggling to get out of bed.
“She really couldn’t get out of bed and that’s when it hit me,” said Nay. “I started worrying I was going to lose her at that point.”
So now the next step — to remove the lump on her chest. She got a lumpectomy in June of 2026 and during surgery, they found a second mass.
“When I found out they had to take out more and 17 lymph nodes, I was a little deflated,” Young said.
But in the post surgery haze, when the medical team gave her a rundown of all they'd removed, she looked down at her wrist.
“I was like where did that come from?” She said.
A bracelet, adorned with the breast cancer symbol and pink beads, rested around her wrist. Young apparently picked the bracelet from a tray her medical team brought over, and in her haze, she picked one.
“I looked at it and this cancer symbol said hope. And what perfect timing because that’s what I need right now is hope,” Young said.
It was a gift from Lone Star Hospital’s PACU nurse Laura Liggins. whose made the bracelets over the last four and a half years, inspired by a friend’s breast cancer journey.
She makes them just for breast cancer patients and she usually makes around 15 bracelets over the weekend. Then she brings them to work for the patients.
“I just want them to have a little token from us to lighten the load maybe just a little bit,” Liggins said.
And, Liggins wasn’t even on shift when Young got her gift and they had never met before until last week.
It was an emotional first meeting for the two because of how much the bracelet meant to Young.
“It gave me the push I needed,” Young said.
Nay nominated Liggins for the Daisy Award, which recognizes nurses who provide extraordinary and compassionate care for their patients.
Liggins won and explained how touching it was.
“They read me the note they sent me and it just made me cry,” Liggins said. “I love doing it. I didn’t do it to win awards to get recognition. I did it because it’s important to me. When I see the patient’s faces to get the bracelets, it’s priceless.”
After the lumpectomy, Young made it through radiation and ended up ringing the radiation bell. Now, she has no cancer detected in her body and continues to take a chemotherapy pill, with her bracelet of hope on her wrist and her family by her side.