Ashlee Sadler

It’s Never Too Late To Find the Balance

“It was the best job that almost killed me,” Ashlee Saddler says about her years serving as a school principal in the Aurora Public School system.

She loved so much about the role: the kids whose education she nurtured, the faculty and staff whose careers she mentored and whose mental health she championed, and the opportunity to be a transformative leader. But along with those rewards came the unrelenting pressures of educating students several grade levels behind, many with limited English proficiency, while continuing to engage students testing at or above grade level; stretching a too-thin budget to meet the ever-expanding needs of the population she served; all while trying to heal a school community that had been recently rocked by scandal. Ashlee responded to that vast well of need by working harder and longer, forgoing vacations to stay on top of her never-ending to-do list and pushing aside her own emotional well-being for that of the school until, one day, her body made it clear that her days of doing that were over.

On November 19, 2018, Ashlee was diagnosed with breast cancer. In some ways, the diagnosis shouldn’t have come as a shock. She had been experiencing symptoms for the past two years, a severe pain in her breast and blood coming out of the nipple. Her body, she says, was screaming at her to pay attention, but she hadn’t listened. It couldn’t be cancer, she had thought, and her doctors agreed. She was too young, not yet 40. There was no family history of cancer. She wasn’t even overweight; in fact, she had always taken excellent care of her physical body, sweating it out in the boxing ring whenever she was able to get away from work. But she did have one serious risk factor for cancer, and that she had in copious amounts: stress. “Stress kills,” Ashlee says. “I’m the poster child for that.”

As she processed her new reality, Ashlee, a minister’s daughter who had grown up in the church, found strength in her prayer and her faith community. Her family rallied around her while she fought the fight of her life, one that she was dismayed to find was not just against the disease itself but also against the very medical system in charge of her care. Over the course of her treatment, Ashlee fired four doctors for incompetent or inconsiderate treatment. Not only had her doctors missed the initial warning signs of her cancer, they failed to understand her needs as a patient and left her with an infection following her double mastectomy and reconstruction so serious that it would be more than a year and a half before she was able to correct the procedure.

Ashlee was unusually capable of advocating for herself. A star student in high school who excelled in sports, speech, and debate alike, she went on to an undergraduate degree in Speech Communication and a Master’s in Social Work. After working with foster children in Indiana, Ashlee transitioned her career to a focus on education, returning to Colorado to serve as a school social worker in the Aurora Public School system, where she quickly rose through the ranks to become an Assistant Principal and later Principal of the school. Ashlee had spent her career prioritizing the voices of her school community, making sure the students, teachers, and staff in her building felt seen, heard, and respected. That was a battle she always expected to be arduous. Gaining access to responsive, appropriate medical care was not, and yet that proved to be just as much of a challenge.

Ashlee’s husband sometimes likes to joke that she’s a dreamkiller, but Ashlee disagrees. She says she is a realist. She was a realist about what it was going to take to get through cancer treatment, which in her case required becoming her own fierce patient advocate and a thorough revamping of her approach to food and nutrition. She was a realist about what she could take on while undergoing that treatment, which turned out to be quite a lot; in the midst of recovery from a major breast reconstruction surgery, Ashlee pursued and received her doctorate (Doctorate of Education from Baylor University). She has also learned to be a realist about what her body requires of her to do all that she demands of it, which she now knows includes taking time away from her vast responsibilities to keep the stress at bay.

Despite the dual demands of her current role at the University of Virginia’s Partnership for Leaders in Education, working with superintendents nationwide, and leading her consulting business, Saddler Consulting LLC, Ashlee is holding sacred time away from her professional life. Post cancer, she is saying YES to the trip, taking time with her husband to travel the globe, and taking time for her body and spirit to recharge. Ashlee has so much more she wants to accomplish, but now, she will be sure to listen to her body and find the balance she needs to move forward with strength and wellness.

It is never too late to find the balance.