“The downturns are important,” says Carolyn Severo, business director for Aesthetica Cosmetic Surgery and Laser Center, two Radiance Salons and Medi-Spas. As she says this, the stock market is plummeting amid fears over the United States’ diminished credit rating and the precarious state of Europe’s economies. Yet Severo sits comfortably composed with her sophisticated black dress still crisp − victorious over the day’s humidity. She leans forward and, with a voice as welcoming and cool as ice water on a hot day, says, “Because that’s how you learn what is important.” This is not just business speak for Severo. It is wisdom culled from multiple experiences − professional and personal − that, encountered individually, could derail a person’s life. Perhaps it is a quality she learned while selling accident insurance door-to-door in college, or maybe it is something innate, but Severo does not get derailed. She forges ahead, clear on her destination and mindful of how best to get there.

In the late 80s, Severo left her successful job at Prudential to raise her kids. “I loved being home with my kids,” she says, eyes wide and energetic like a child’s at Christmas. “I was involved in their schools, in their sports. I was fully in that life.” She mentions one specific moment when she was completely in the knowledge of how good her life had become. “We were at Mass. I can even remember what I was wearing − a checked blouse and a black skirt. I am watching my husband and my two beautiful children walking before me and I thought, ‘You know, it doesn’t get much better than this.’”

A couple of months later, she found blood clots on her toilet paper. Family members with medical backgrounds and even her doctor felt it was most likely something routine − hemorrhoids perhaps − but Severo had it checked out. Doctors found polyps in her colon which they assured her was routine and would most likely test negative. When the nurse called asking her to come in immediately and bring her husband, Severo knew the results were not what the doctors expected.

The biopsy revealed she had stage three colon cancer, which meant it had gotten into her lymph system. Surgery and chemo would be required; her survival rate was 50/50. “It sounds odd, but it was refreshing to go into the oncologist’s office and have them tell you what to do. My husband lost his job two months after my diagnosis, and we had so many decisions to make. Do we sell the house? Do we move? What do we tell the kids?”

Chemo was on Thursdays, and Carolyn arrived dressed to the nines. Her attitude was the one thing left that she could control, and dressing up bolstered it. “I wanted to go into the chemo room feeling alive,” she says. On her nails, she wore Opi’s “I’m Not Really a Waitress,” a color described by an online retailer as a “jewel-red polish with a little shimmer [that] shows your star power,” and focused on it during her treatment. After chemo, Severo’s doctors upped her odds of survival to 60 percent.

With the family finances still in flux, Carolyn took a job answering phones for Dr. Phillip Chang, owner of Aesthetica Cosmetic Surgery and Laser Center. “I went from having a corner office to having a desk corner for an office,” she jokes. The money she earned did not erase the family’s financial hardships, and working meant that she could not be involved with her family as fully as she had been.
Aesthetica was a good fit, though. Severo found the staff warm and supportive, and her forge-ahead spirit was welcomed. A little more than a year after starting there, she was managing the office and, at great personal risk, became one of the initial investors in Radiance, a salon and med spa. “Every financial rule I learned at Prudential, I broke to invest in Radiance. But I’m glad I did it.” The first Radiance opened in 2003; a second location in 2007. Severo is the business director for both Radiance locations and Aesthetica.

Carolyn Severo believes that life is “all about gratitude and attitude” and she has met cancer and financial straits with healthy doses of both. In late 2008, four months before her 50th birthday − and almost eight years cancer-free − Carolyn completed her MBA degree. She started classes three years after finishing chemo which is when she decided she was going to live. “For some reason, I had always believed that dying before 50 was a premature death. Now that I'm 52, you would think that I would have redefined ‘premature.’ I really haven't. I'm just grateful for every year that I get on the other side of the line.”

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JESSAMYN AYERS writes and lives in Loudoun County with her husband and two children. The perfect day for her includes some combination of reading, writing, running, working with her dogs and baseball. She is currently working on a novel.