By La’Tasha Givens
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ATLANTA (WUPA) — For Mary Sims, the nightmare began with what she thought was a simple case of the flu. Instead, it spiraled into a grueling five-year battle with cancer that robbed her of her health, her hair, and her 30s.
Today, the only thing Sims is fighting is the weight on the rack. Now a competitive bodybuilder, the Atlanta mother has transformed her survival story into a mission to help other women rebuild their bodies after medical trauma.
The road to the stage was paved with hardship. Sims was diagnosed with a FLT3 mutation, a form of leukemia that is notoriously difficult to cure. Doctors told her that her best chance at survival was a bone marrow transplant.
The search for a donor was met with immediate obstacles. Her siblings were tested, but none were a match for the stem cell transplant she desperately needed. Her oldest sister, Tequila Chester, was unable to be tested at the time because she was pregnant.
While Sims’s two sons gave her the motivation to keep fighting, a family tragedy ultimately provided the miracle she needed.
During Sims’s treatment, Chester suffered a miscarriage. Despite her own grief, her first thought was of her sister.
“In that moment, I didn’t think about me, I thought about my sister,” Chester said. Once she was able to be tested, the results were a miracle: she was a 100 percent match.
“The first thing she said to me was, ‘What do you need from me? I got you,'” Sims recalled through tears.
The transplant saved Sims’s life, but the recovery was a mountain of its own. Following the procedure, Sims endured 100 consecutive days of eight-hour hospital visits. Complications left her barely able to walk, and the toll on her body felt permanent.
“Cancer robbed me of my 30s,” Sims said. But she wasn’t about to let it take her 40s.
Sims became determined to reclaim everything the illness had stripped away from her hair to her physique. She opened salon Studio 211, specifically catering to women experiencing medically related hair loss.
Then, she turned her focus to strengthening her body. Working with bodybuilding coach Angel Andrews, Sims didn’t just get back in shape; she sculpted her body into an award-winning masterpiece. She has since competed in and won multiple bodybuilding competitions.
As Sims grew stronger, her sister’s life had changed too. Chester became pregnant again. While her rainbow baby Brooklyn was born healthy, Chester faced her own medical hurdles, including preeclampsia, high blood pressure, and sleep apnea.
Needing to lose more than 50 pounds for her health, Chester turned to the woman who knew how to make a health comeback.
“Just like I did with her, she said yes,” Chester said.
Using the same disciplined approach that rebuilt her own body after chemotherapy, Sims coached her sister back to health. Today, both sisters are at their physical best, bonded by a bond that goes deeper than blood.
Sims now leads a fitness group in Atlanta, helping women navigate weight loss and recovery. Her message to anyone facing a life-altering illness is, “You can come out on the other side even better than you were before.”
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