Alma Daneshi: Three-Time Cancer Survivor Brings Message of Hope, Prevention

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Alma Daneshi cried as she sat in her San Diego-area oncologist’s office, traumatized by past-and-present health battles that continued to endanger her life.

She had been through a brain aneurism and open-brain surgery.

Then breast cancer.

Then breast cancer again, followed by cervical cancer.

She had lost her job managing a TGI Fridays restaurant while recovering from the aneurism and taking time off for cancer treatment. She got evicted and worried how she would care for herself and her then 12-year-old daughter.

Then she learned she contracted viral meningitis during treatment.

Daneshi, sitting beside her oncologist, broke down and wept.

But then she got some life-changing advice.

“My oncologist let me cry for a bit before she said, ‘Instead of crying, put your anger and sadness into something positive,’” Daneshi said. “She was on the board of directors for the American Cancer Society (ACS), and she told me I can get involved as a volunteer.”

Daneshi, now cancer-free four years later, is a volunteer extraordinaire.

For ACS’s San Diego region, she speaks at health fairs, answers a cancer hotline, helps organize cancer awareness fundraisers, hosts a cancer support group for Spanish speakers, and counsels people about health insurance.

Daneshi is also involved with the cancer awareness activities of Redes, which is funded by the National Cancer Institute. Redes has four offices—one in San Diego—and a headquarters at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio.

She just won an ACS “spirit” award for her work with the local population.

“I tell people help is available and prevention is possible,” Daneshi said. “It saves lives if people get preventive health exams.”

Daneshi is invaluable to the entire San Diego community, said Dr. Sheila Castañeda of San Diego State University and Redes.

“Alma is the epitome of a true cancer survivor,” Castañeda said. “She has a superb ability to take her own struggles and victories to inform and inspire [people] across the region to prevent cancer. She’s amazing.”