Lori Levine and her husband Scott turned her journey into a way to help fuel breast cancer research
In April 2017, Lori Levine found herself stepping onto an airplane that would take her to Michigan to celebrate her older son’s college graduation, and coincidentally her birthday. At 55 years old, she had a routine mammogram a short time prior to the planned trip, and due to dense breasts had a sonogram scheduled for the same day. Her phone rang as she boarded the plane, and received life-changing news: She had breast cancer.
“It was absolutely shocking to me since I have no family history,” she says. Despite the mammogram pointing to an “all clear,” the sonogram showed a different outcome.
The doctor said she had Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (IDC). “I didn’t have any information yet because I hadn’t had an MRI,” she recalls. She decided not to share the diagnosis with her family, so as to keep the focus on her son’s graduation celebration. “It was one of the hardest weekends of my life,” she says.
When she returned, she had an MRI, which led her doctors to give her a diagnosis of stage 1. But, when she eventually underwent surgery, they found cancer in her lymph nodes, leading to a stage 2 diagnosis. She underwent a lumpectomy and two months of radiation. “Once I completed treatment, I didn’t feel well,” she recalls. Ultimately, she met with a nutritionist, seeking to eat “cleaner and greener,” after spending the majority of meal times eating protein bars while traveling back and forth from treatment, “thinking they were healthy,” she says.
After nixing them from her diet, she says: “I was feeling better and getting back to my life including exercise classes and seeing friends/family. But I was missing my sweet tasting grab and go snack.” Ultimately, this would lead her to create Scott’s Protein Balls, a Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) partner. “I would complain to my husband Scott, and he said ‘You’ve been through so much and I haven’t really been able to help you, I am going to create a healthy snack for you,’’ she recalls.
So, Scott created the “perfect great tasting grab and go peanut butter and chocolate chip protein ball by combining recipes that he found online. It became my go to snack and quickly became a favorite of all of our friends and family. During COVID when my kids moved home I decided it was time to make an inventory and I launched Scott’s Protein Balls in late 2020.”
What started as a husband’s support during a difficult time turned into a fruitful business. “Fast forward, but we are now sold in over 1,000 locations including Target nationwide,” Lori says.
The couple donates 1% of all sales to BCRF, and has been a parter of the Foundation since 2022. “I am so incredibly grateful for our partnership,” she says. “I feel a tremendous connection because many of the tests that my doctors used over the years were tests that were actually funded by BCRF. I regularly speak about BCRF and the personal impact that the [Foundation] has had on me.”
Lori’s story is a testament to the power of research. “From BRCA screening (which I didn’t test positive for), to the Oncotype score (which told my doctors that my rate of recurrence was low enough that I didn’t need chemotherapy), to another test which told my doctor that I could come off of the Leatrazole because I wasn’t going to benefit by continuing to take it. I am a CPA/numbers person and my doctors were able to treat with data and science and not just their opinions thanks to BCRF-funded researchers,” she says. “For this, I’ll be forever grateful.”
Her biggest takeaway from the life-altering diagnosis? “Stay positive,” she says. “My grandma always told me that attitude is everything and I live by that. I always try to find a silver lining and believe there are better days ahead. In this case at age 55, I was able to take a breast cancer journey and turn it into a business during a global pandemic. Anything is possible and never stop having hope.”
