RICHMOND HILL - When Bailey Spurling was told she had her cancer, her first reaction wasn’t surprise or shock or dismay.

“I said, ‘I don’t have time for this. I’m too busy of a person. I don’t have time for this,’” she recalled. “I didn’t want to accept it. I didn’t.”

It took a couple of appointments for the cancer diagnosis to sink in with Spurling and what her life would be like for the next few years.

“Now I realize this is an ongoing thing,” she said. “It never ends.”

The wife, mother of two teenagers and busy hairdresser has chronicled her diagnosis and her journey to remission in “Surviving – The True Story.”

She started the book after having a number of customers and friends tell her they had family members affected by breast cancer.

“So I started sharing it with them and then I decided I felt my word was empowering enough to put it in a book,” Spurling said. “I don’t just talk about my breast cancer journey. I talk about my walk with God and how it helped get me to where I am.”

Spurling received her diagnosis in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was not fun,” she pointed out.

When her diagnosis came, she was told she was at stage 4. Because of the advanced nature of her cancer, she wasn’t given a list of options. She was told the treatment plans for her and what the doctors wanted to do.

Spurling went through six weeks of chemotherapy, followed by surgeries and radiation treatment. The longtime hairdresser also lost all of her during this.

“I lost a lot of my identity,” she said.

But the treatments succeeded, and Spurling is in remission. She goes to get scans every three months and gets blood work done in a new protocol for fighting cancer.

“I’ve been doing wonderful,” she said.

Her faith, family and friends kept her spirits up during her fight. Her salon, Lavender Hill, even held a hair cut-a-thon to raise money for surgeries.

“I have so many people here in Georgia who just wrapped their arms around me and made sure I was taken care of,” she said. “My parents, my aunt and uncle, my husband, my kids, everybody has been more than supportive of me. It has been a very trying thing. We’ve all gone through different steps in this. I’m thankful I’m here and able to do this.”

Spurling also details her fight early in her life, when she came down with an e coli bacterial infection at just 2 years old.

“It’s not just for breast cancer patients,” she said of the book. “It’s so much more – it’s for mental awareness, for addiction, for someone who is struggling in life to know there are ups and downs. Hopefully I can give them strength and keep them moving forward.”

Spurling held a launch party and book signing Saturday evening at the Waterford Landing club house and turned into a celebration, complete with a DJ and a silent auction. Spurling also is in the process of forming a foundation, Stand Up and Stand Out, with the hopes of having its by-laws finished next summer.

The foundation and the funds it raises will help combat cancers of all kinds, she said.

“Our hope is to do many different events,” she said, “skeet tournaments, golf tournaments, do some galas, just some fun events. We’ll do the Relay for Life. We’ll do Making Strides.”

Her enduring message is for women – and men – to get checked.

“There are so many men who have been diagnosed with breast cancer,” Spurling noted. “That is an awareness a lot of people don’t think about. I just want to share with the world you should get checked and know that you are not alone. Call me, find me on Instagram, Tik Tok, I will hold your hand and go with you. I’m off on Mondays. And God has all of us. That’s the One Who can help us through anything.”

Her book is a thank you to the community who surrounded her with support and especially her thanks to God.

“It’s about a celebration that God has led me here and God has given me a purpose to share my story with everyone,” Spurling said.