A Montreal woman who was told by health-care professionals that she was too young for breast cancer but later diagnosed with it, has died from the disease. Valerie Buchanan was 32 when she died at the end of February.

“I keep asking myself why anyone, but selfishly, why her?” Chris Scheepers, Buchanan’s husband told CTVNews.ca in a telephone interview. “She was a beautiful person. She was extremely driven, talented and positive. What really breaks me is our son won’t know the truly remarkable woman she was.”

Throughout 2020, Buchanan sought answers for a lump in her chest but had said she was reassured by multiple health-care professionals in Ottawa and Montreal that it was a benign cyst without sending her for imaging to confirm.

After 13 months, Buchanan eventually went to a private clinic and was diagnosed with Stage 3 triple-negative breast cancer – a biologically aggressive subtype of breast cancer. Just a few months later, she learned it was Stage 4.

In the last four years, amidst multiple surgeries – breast, chest and brain, along with multiple rounds of radiation and chemotherapy – she travelled, she advanced her interior design business, got married, and had a son.

“It was quite a fight to just get her proper care, unfortunately. It was all just very unfortunate timing,” Scheepers said. “It’s just really unfortunate that it cost this beautiful person their life at 32.”

Scheepers and Buchanan met online nearly 20 years ago – Buchanan was living in Montreal, and Scheepers was in Ottawa.

They got engaged in 2018.

Scheepers says he was inspired by Buchanan’s positivity, drive, passion, and creativity.

For their son’s first Halloween last October, Buchanan had planned a circus-themed celebration: their son would be dressed as a lion in a cage, with Scheepers as the ringmaster and Buchanan as a circus performer.

“I remember spending two hours at Home Depot alone just trying to figure out what would be the best materials for it,” Scheepers said. “I spent six hours putting together such a basic thing, but it all came together, and she was so happy. I would do it all over again if I had to.”

“Even if it was just building something like that, she gave me so much purpose.”