Allison Stanley

Allison Stanley (born September 7, 1966) is a breast cancer survivor featured on NBC’s Daytime Emmy Award nominated reality television program, Starting Over.
Biography
Stanley was born and grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina. She has an elder brother. Her father, James Stanley, Jr. (died 1991), a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, was a druggist. Her mother, Ann Stanley (died 2008), worked at her husband's drugstore for years before branching out into real estate. Following in her father's footsteps, she graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Soon after, she traveled to New York to pursue an acting career.
While in New York, she became a cruise director in Alaska and Latin America, a junior sales assistant at Morgan Stanley and checked coats at an expensive New York restaurant. In 1996, she left the Big Apple for New Orleans, and worked as a production manager for a top national political media producer for the 1996 and 1998 elections. She returned to North Carolina in 1999 to work as an executive assistant at Bank of America Securities.
In February 2004 she was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. After aggressively fighting the rounds of radiation and cancer medications, she is sin remission. She established the Chemo Cafe', where fellow cancer patients are visited by people and given homemade goodies while receiving chemo. She has also volunteered at Race for the Cure, promoted Laugh for the Cure and produced Charlotte’s Sing for the Cure in September 2006. She continues to participate in each of these and added Raft for the Cure as the Komen representative alongside North Carolina's First Lady, Mary Easley, wife of Governor Mike Easley.
Allison has been a keynote speaker for the Hereditary Cancers Conference in Tampa, sponsored by F.O.R.C.E. (Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered), Laugh for the Cure 2005during which she received the Celebrated Survivor Award, CCFC Breast Cancer Conference for Health Care Professionals in Cleveland, Ohio, and Share Our Strength's Conference of Leaders in November 2007. She sang the National Anthem before the Charlotte Checkers professional hockey team during their “PINK IN THE RINK” breast cancer fundraiser.
She is best known for being on Seasons 2 and 3 of NBC’s daytime reality show,
Starting Over.
only to find out later on the show that she had tested positive for the BRCA-1 gene and was pre-disposed to cancer. With millions of viewers watching, Allison made the decision to lose both her breasts and her uterus.

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