BATON ROUGE — A breast cancer diagnosis in February 2025 set Nanette Burbank on a path that would eventually lead her to make more than 100 handmade rose pins for other patients going through the same thing.

It started one night when Burbank noticed a bloody discharge from her breast while in bed. She had gotten a mammogram just nine months earlier, so cancer was not her first thought. Days later, a doctor found a lump in her right breast. A biopsy confirmed stage 0 breast cancer.

Because Burbank had a family history of breast cancer, including cousins, a grandmother and aunts, her care team recommended genetic testing as well.

"You know, I've had a lot of ladies in my family that have gone through this journey before me, during, and unfortunately there'll probably be some after me," Burbank said. "However, my grandmother back 30 or 40 years ago, when research and medicine hadn't quite advanced, she had a double mastectomy. So I take inspiration from her."

Surgery to remove the cancer and breast reconstruction followed in June. Two weeks later, she learned she needed another surgery to remove a lymph node.

After six weeks of radiation, Burbank was cancer-free.

"I never had any setback, but I did listen to my doctors, you know. I did," Burbank said. "I got a lot of rest. I started changing my eating habits and becoming more active with exercise, and I feel wonderful. I do."

During her recovery, a thought came to her that reframed the whole experience.

"When I was looking down one day, I heard a voice say, 'You know, even roses are pruned to return back more beautiful and healthier,'" Burbank said. "And I'm like, that's it. That is how I can look at my journey. I did this little pruning to get healthier — to come back and return healthier and, you know, just live life to the fullest."

That idea turned into action. Burbank started making rose pins with a small card carrying that same message and gave more than 100 of them to her doctor to hand out to patients who needed encouragement.

Today she works from home, spends time with her son watching LSU, the Pelicans and the Saints, and continues making jewelry as a way to lift others still on their own cancer journey.