Jeannette Reding was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer on Valentine’s Day earlier this year.
Hoag Hospital gave the same news to her daughter, Kristina Walters, five days later.
The mother and daughter have always been close. They live in the same neighborhood in Orange.
Now, they’re both breast cancer survivors, and this experience over the last few months may have brought them together that much more.
Kristina Walters, left, and her mother Jeannette Reding, right, embrace after they together rang the cancer “completion bell” at the Hoag Family Cancer Institute in Newport Beach on Thursday. (Don Leach / Staff Photographer)
“It’s almost like it’s been easier for my dad [Tony] and my husband [Mike],” said Kristina Walters, 43. “My dad is a big worrier, but it was almost more calm. It was kind of a blessing in disguise, which is weird. You’re not alone. You do feel alone, but you’re really not.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh my God, poor us.’ It was more like, ‘Thank God we have each other.’ Kind of crazy.”
Walters finished her cancer treatments a couple of weeks ago. On Thursday, the family gathered as her mother also rang the bell signifying the completion of cancer treatment at the Hoag Family Cancer Institute in Newport Beach.
Reding, 66, called it “surreal” that her daughter was also diagnosed with cancer.