Shaw and Garth Brooks.

Shaw and Garth Brooks.

A northern Iowa woman held up a sign at Friday’s Garth Brooks concert in Minneapolis reading: “Chemo This Morning, Garth Tonight, Enjoying ‘The Dance.'” That sign caught the county music legend’s eye and video of the exchange went viral.

Forty-six-year-old Teresa Shaw of Osage was taken to the concert by her daughter, Elizabeth, as an early birthday present and an “almost-done-with-chemo” celebration. She was helped by security to get to the front of the stage. Once Brooks saw Shaw and her sign, he started to sing his song “The Dance” and came to the edge of the stage. Shaw says Brooks gave her a hug and a kiss and said, “I love you and all my strength is with you through this.” She responded that she had three treatments to go.

Then Brooks went away looking for what Shaw thought at the time was a pen to autograph her sign, but Brooks ended up giving her his guitar. Shaw says she was overwhelmed with emotion and calls the gift “incredible.” Shaw says she’s amazed about how her story went worldwide over the weekend with videos being posted on YouTube and appearing on social media. She’s gotten a chance to see some of the videos and is thankful that people were able to capture that moment, along with the speed that it traveled via social media.

Shaw says the moment she shared with Brooks reminds us that big stars are people, too, who show their emotions in certain situations. She says he was just “a regular human being just like all of us,” and people tend to forget that celebrities go through things like cancer, too. Shaw says she continues to have faith that she can beat cancer and encourages women to be proactive in dealing with breast cancer.

“Do the self exams, get mammograms, and if there’s anything suspicious, go in and have it checked out and keep on top of it,” Shaw says. She says she has her bad days, but she continues to be as positive as she can and tries to have a sense of humor to get through it. Shaw was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in June.

Shaw will have surgery for a double mastectomy followed by reconstructive surgery after the first of the year. Besides numerous interviews she conducted with national and Midwest media over the weekend, Entertainment Tonight was flying Shaw and her daughter to California where she’ll be filmed with Brooks tomorrow morning.

Herer’s KGLO’s interview with Shaw: www.kglonews.com/pc/teresashaw.mp3


(Reporting by Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City)