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'It's Just Hair: 20 Essential Life Lessons': Breast Cancer Survivor Finds Her Purpose

LOS ANGELES (KNX 1070) — For Judy Pearson, everything happens for a reason - even if that means losing your hair.

Pearson, the award-winning author of "It's Just Hair: 20 Essential Life Lessons", started writing the book after her breast cancer diagnosis forced her to confront the disease head-on.

She told KNX 1070's Diane Thompson that reality is a "hard pill to swallow sometimes."

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"Breast cancer was the last thing I needed to have happen. But, I just made up my mind that I was going to beat it and then find out what the reason was that it happened to me," said Pearson. "And as a writer and a public speaker, pretty obvious, go write and speak!"

Pearson told The Daily Beast that just hours before her mastectomy in 2011, she was encouraged to donate her tumor for cancer research. She agreed after they assured her they would "respectfully" dispose of it.

"I said, 'Well, it's not respecting me. It's trying to kill me,'" said Pearson. "Sure, have at it."

In September, the Cancer Genome Project was published and reportedly used 850 tumors from the previous year - one of which likely may have been Pearson's.

A graduate of Michigan State University, Pearson has written two decades worth of newspaper and magazine articles, and has published three books, but says despite her success, she makes it a point never to downplay the struggles - and victories - she has experienced in her battle with breast cancer.

"When you have something like this face you, you can go two ways: you can pull the covers over your head and eat barbeque potato chips until you explode and do nothing," Pearson said. "Or you can try to look for the good in it, look for the purpose in it."

"And your gonna have this bad thing happen to you anyway, so my recommendation is always look for the good," she added. "I really believe that."

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