'You'll Be OK Too,' a cancer documentary, has smashing premiere at Bellmore Movies

Christina Mathieson-Segura has spent most of her life as a go-getter. A single mom and businesswoman for many years, she described herself as a problem-solver.

“I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to help, empowering women,” she said. “I took a lot of pride in shoving a square peg into a round hole with nobody telling me I couldn’t do something. I was on a mission.”

That attitude changed, however, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2020. But, Mathieson-Segura took her fears and turned them into something beautiful: her documentary, “You’ll Be OK Too: Christina’s Journey,” premiered on June 20 at the Bellmore Movies.

“I wanted my journey to be of value to somebody, someday,” she said. “I had the worst anxiety of my life. I would go to sleep, and I would wake up at 2 in the morning, gasping for air, realizing I had cancer — and it was debilitating.”

It’s been nearly two years since Mathieson-Segura, now 58, finished treatment — six months of chemotherapy followed by a double mastectomy, reconstructive surgery and a complete hysterectomy, all at once, during a 12-hour long procedure.

Her own diagnosis was reminiscent of her mom’s, who died from breast cancer at 48, when Mathieson-Segura was 23. Watching her mom suffer at a time when treatment options weren’t as vast was traumatizing.

“The chemotherapy was really like, in my opinion, let’s bring somebody as close to death as we possibly can and hope this works,” Mathieson-Segura said. “It was a completely different time. I had that etched in my memory, and I buried it. Our brains do wonderful things to protect us.”

Taking her journey into her own hands, Mathieson-Segura began taking short, selfie videos of herself throughout her treatment process. What she wanted to show people is that she was OK — and that they’d be OK too.

“Throughout the process, I kept making these videos, and I thought the next woman that goes through this is going to at least have something to look at when you feel awful because you’re bald and you don’t have eyebrows,” she told the Herald. “Or you feel awful because the chemotherapy is making you gain weight.

“I wanted every woman to know that she was entitled to be mad, sad, angry, upset, anxious,” she added, “and that it was OK to ask for help.”

Accumulating over a hundred videos, she also interviewed four additional women, who were willing to share their thoughts and experiences. With the help of producers Charlie Steiner and Holli Haerr, her vision came to life.

The documentary’s premiere on June 20 was a night to celebrate the triumph of women like Mathieson-Segura. She wants women to feel inspired and empowered, and know that they are capable of fighting — just like she.

Looking back on her cancer journey, Mathieson-Segura called her newfound outlook on life “post-traumatic growth.”

“After you go through something, you realize how strong you are and how powerful you are,” she said in June. “Your life is never the same. My life is now the happiest it’s ever been.”

Mathieson-Segura created a nonprofit in the same name as her documentary. For more on her mission, and for links to the documentary, visit YoullBeOkToo.org.