It took a couple of years to fully develop the idea, from coming up with slogans and finding suppliers, to setting up an e-commerce Web site. TLC Cancer Apparel (TLC for Teri’s Love and Care) was recently launched into Cyberspace, and now Pearson must focus her efforts on marketing and growing the business.

One of the slogans used on the hats and apparel is “Another Beautiful Day.” Her brother-in-law, who had been fighting melanoma for 20 years, succumbed to cancer shortly after she started chemotherapy. Pearson recalls him always, no matter how much he struggled, saying, “It’s another beautiful day.”

“Every day you wake up, you know you’re blessed with another day,” said Pearson, who could never truly consider herself cancer-free because her physicians must watch her other breast closely to make sure it, too, doesn’t develop cancer cells.

“It’s a learning experience you don’t wish on anybody,” said her husband, Rob, referring to the path of unknowns that cancer patients and their families take.

Rob, who owns an architectural and building firm, has been instrumental in helping his wife brainstorm ideas, design the slogans on the computer, do research and marketing. “I’d be lost without him. I would not have come this far,” Pearson said. “He pretty much held my hand through it.”

A couple of years ago, Pearson decided to retire from South Colby Elementary, where she worked in the office, and devote all her energy to starting TLC Caner Apparel (www.tlccancerapparel.com). She decided to start small, and grow gradually. In the process, Pearson had a huge learning curve. “I went into this knowing what I wanted, but I had no idea how to do it,” she said. So she’s invested a big amount of time into “picking people’s brains.”

One of the biggest surprises for the couple, who lacked merchandising background, is how much they needed to invest. Pearson used her retirement to finance her new venture. “Every time I turned around, it was chu-ching, chu-ching,” she said. “I had no idea it was such an expensive outlay.”

But with many of those steps behind her, and the Web site ready to accept orders, Pearson said she’s ready to hit the pavement, spread the word about her business. She feels she can give other cancer patients and their families hope and encouragement. She also donates 10 percent of her profits to the American Cancer Society.

“Cancer is a scary disease,” Rob Pearson said. “For the first time, you are looking at the possibility of what happens if you don’t make it. You’re looking at your own mortality.”

Some of the slogans used on the baseball caps, hats and shirts include “Fighting cancer” and “Beating cancer.” Those fighting words compelled the South Colby woman to plunge into the world of entrepreneurship, and she hopes to share that message while expanding her business. One of her slogans is a simple “Survivor” written over the cancer’s ribbon symbol. Surviving, for Pearson, doesn’t appear enough. She wants to encourage others — not to be ashamed of their illness, or of their bald heads, but instead be proud of being alive.