Carrie Gallo, 44, whose mom also had breast cancer, was diagnosed when she was five months pregnant with her third child

Carrie Gallo was five months pregnant with her third child, shopping for preschool supplies for her daughter, when she answered a call from a doctor’s office. She’d been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Gallo, then 41, hung up the phone and continued down the aisles, putting “all of the little things my daughter wanted for school” in the cart. “She was so excited,” says Gallo. She checked out, put her daughter in the car seat, and drove to the preschool classroom. It wasn’t until later, when she was home, sitting on the porch, her two children settled in the house, when she “lost it,” says Gallo.

Less than a year before, Gallo, now 44, had received a clear mammogram and ultrasound. Despite that, the doctor just told her she had stage 3 lobular carcinoma, a type of cancer that’s difficult to detect on a mammogram. The next day she had to see a breast surgeon. The following week she was scheduled to see an oncologist, get her port, and start chemo.

Within weeks, Gallo’s life in Franklin, Tenn. had completely changed. But Gallo made a plan. “I made goals. I had to be a mom. I had to grow this baby,” says Gallo. “That’s what I did. It was like ‘Get this baby here. Check. Get this surgery done. Check.’”

Years earlier, Gallo had learned the important lesson of how to function while facing cancer from her own mother, Jill Bleitner. Her mom was diagnosed with ductal breast cancer when she was 47 and Gallo was in high school. Gallo watched as her mom balanced parenting with managing the disease. Her mom’s goal, she told Gallo, was to live until Gallo’s high school graduation. She did that and more.

Yet when Gallo was first diagnosed, she didn’t tell her mom right away. “I waited to tell her until I had every ounce of information because I knew she was going to take it very hard. She and I were very close.”

As soon as she did, however, her mom became the person she would turn to for answers and understanding. “She was my safe place, she was a cancer survivor,” Gallo says. “I didn’t feel like I was complaining or that I sounded crazy for things I would say relating to it all. She understood all of it. And I think one of the big reasons I didn’t worry is because she told me everything was going to be fine.”

When Gallo was diagnosed, her pregnancy was far enough along for her to begin chemo. She completed four rounds while still pregnant with her son. Two weeks before her son Rowen was born —six weeks early— the chemo “lowered my immune system so badly” that she ended up in the hospital for more than a week due to complications from the treatment. Soon after giving birth, she started a second round of chemo.

By the time Gallo had her double mastectomy surgery in April, doctors told her that her chemo treatments had downgraded her to Stage 1. Following her surgery, she did 25 rounds of radiation.

“People would say, ‘You’re so strong.’ I didn’t have another option,” says Gallo. Her friends and her husband ,Greg, 44, who works in the music industry, stepped in to help right away when she began treatment. “He’s an amazing support system,” she says. Kids were picked up from school. Laundry was handled. Friends stopped by just to do the dishes.

Gallo’s goal was to keep things as normal as possible for her children, Grady and Lucy, now 11 and eight years old. She was glad that her kids seemed to enjoy the extra playdates and family around, but when her daughter asked her a question midway through her treatment, it stopped her in her tracks. “Will you be here when I’m in high school?” Lucy asked her mom.

“It made me want to burst,” Gallo said, remembering the vow her own mother had made years ago. “I didn’t want to lie to her, so I said ‘I’m doing absolutely everything I can to make sure.’”

Gallo’s mom died in February, at the age of 75. “I think her body honestly held on long enough to get me through this,” says Gallo, who is now cancer-free after finishing her treatment in the summer.

While the thought of cancer coming back can make her feel anxious, Gallo focuses on staying positive. That’s what carried her through as she faced the disease.

“I tried to do my best to not get depressed. You have to have those moments where you get it all out. I’m a shower crier. I’d take a long shower, I’d get it out, but then I’d be like, ‘I’m going to be here for my kids. I’m going to live this life,'” she says. “You’re going to have those moments, but you tell yourself you’re going to be okay. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to feel weak. You have to allow yourself to feel all the things. And then tell yourself, ‘Now, I’ve got this job to do.'”