Bobbi Barrasso was perfectly healthy.

An active, busy mom with a great job and a wonderful boyfriend, she was perfectly happy as well.

So even after her doctor called after a routine mammogram, Barrasso wasn't worried. She would go in for her late-in-the-day appointment, and everything would be fine.

But everything wasn't fine. She had breast cancer.

"It was surreal. It was nothing I anticipated," she said. "I had no experience with cancer, but now I had cancer."

Barrasso underwent lumpectomy surgery and lymph node dissection almost immediately, then had a round of chemotherapy, a round of radiation, and a second round of chemotherapy over the next year.

"I like to say that the surgery got the cancer and everything else was insurance," she said. "It was an amazing journey. It's not common, at 50, to be faced with your mortality."

She tried to schedule chemo sessions for Fridays, to make weekend recovery a possibility. Barrasso kept working throughout treatments, even when the chemo starting taking a toll on her body.

"When I lost all my hair, that's when it became real. The chemo was definitely real," she said.

The hair loss was difficult. But Barrasso, who was then Bobbi Brown, was determined to continue working (for late Sen. Craig Thomas) and continue being an active mom, so "I got a couple of wigs and went about my business."

Barrasso has been in remission for almost five years now, and her then-boyfriend, Sen. John Barrasso, is her husband. With an optimistic outlook about her cancer, she hopes to help others fighting the disease.

"For me, it was a blessing," she said. "The experience gives you a new understanding of what cancer is. You don't really know until you go through it, and now I can share my experience with others."

The Barrassos will serve ice cream at the National Cancer Survivors Day celebration in Casper on Sunday, June 1. The ice cream social, for survivors and guests, will be followed by a celebrity softball game and entertainment from Wyoming singer Bryan Ragsdale.

"It's important for survivors to speak out about the joy you feel at having gone through this and survived," she said. "This (event) celebrates survivors, celebrates those we've lost, and celebrates how far we've come."

Contact reporter Megan Lee at (307) 266-0589 or megan.lee@trib.com