Captain Sandy From ‘Below Deck Med’ Celebrates ‘Magical’ Birthday in Miami
Captain Sandy Yawn from Below Deck Mediterranean celebrated her birthday with girlfriend Leah Shafer and friends on a boat in Miami.
Yawn often celebrates her birthday in Florida, a state where she and Shafer plan to move to in the future. “Thank you to our amazing friends for making my birthday so beyond special!! A magical evening here in Miami Florida,” Yawn captioned a series of photos that she shared on Instagram.
‘Below Deck’ family wishes Captain Sandy a happy birthday
Shafer, who is a professional singer, delivered a beautiful rendition of “Happy Birthday” to Yawn as the sun was setting, while they cruised along a waterway. “What a night,” Yawn marveled.
Yawn also had a surprise lunch with chef Dave White from Below Deck Med. “Today is my birthday and look who surprised me for lunch! @chefdavewhite thank you for joining us! And thank you Leah my love for making this day so special,” Yawn wrote.
Plus, plenty of crew members from the Below Deck family wished Yawn a happy birthday. This included chef Ben Robinson, Hayley De Sola Pinto, Oriana Schneps, Ben Willoughby, Captain Kerry Titheradge, and more. Bosun Malia White posted her happy birthday wish to Yawn on her Instagram story, along with a photo.
Captain Sandy’s birthday is also around the time she discovered she had kidney cancer
Yawn has many more reasons to celebrate another year. In 2015, only days before her birthday she was in a horrific motorcycle accident. Scans done in the hospital revealed that she had a “suspicious” spot on her kidney.
“[The doctor] didn’t like the size, shape, or look of the spot he found,” Yawn recalled to Women’s Health. “He said it looked like a tumor that could be malignant, but he wouldn’t know for sure until he removed it. The only way to do that was through another surgery.”
Yawn initially shrugged off the doctor’s concerns and went home when she was released from her motorcycle accident. But her doctor urged her to return.
“Once he drilled this into me, I realized that going back to the hospital was worth it,” she said. “After my MRI, I learned that the potentially cancerous tumor had to be removed immediately. I was 49, and the word ‘cancer’ floating around made me, and the doctor, eager to remove it as soon as possible.”
“I had laparoscopic surgery less than one month after my motorcycle accident,” she said. “The tumor was, in fact, stage II kidney cancer and could have gone unnoticed had I never been in my accident.”
She hopes to be an example for others
Yawn is cancer free and since then she’s also had a heart attack. “I have lived many lifetimes and I know that God’s spared my life,” Yawn recently told Showbiz Cheat Sheet.
“So I need to share my experience and give hope to people,” she added. “Because I feel like that’s why I was given the TV show. I wasn’t given the TV show just to talk about the TV show. I was given the TV show because for me, God had a higher purpose and he’s using me. And I want to be useful. Entertainment’s great. That’s Below Deck. That’s Bravo. Usefulness to others is what I want to do with my platform. I want to give back.”
