Marnie Schulenburg might have been a familiar face if you watched any of “As The World Turns” in its final few years. In her 20’s she played Alison Stewart in over 300 episodes of the classic soap opera and even earned an Emmy nomination.

She passed away Tuesday of metastatic breast cancer at a Bloomfield, New Jersey hospital. Her journey with the disease was truly its own soap opera. She was diagnosed already at stage 3 in May of 2020. Because she had just had her baby, Coda, a few months prior doctors at first thought it was mastitis, a condition breastfeeding brings.

Once they realized what they were actually dealing with Schulenburg fought with a tenacious spirit. That same year, early in her battle, she told Soap Opera Digest,

“I have a 6-month-old and I need to be here for her. Nothing good comes from being negative. I truly think the cancer feeds off that negative energy, so I’m staying positive.”

On Mother’s Day she was still fighting to stay with her now 2-year-old daughter. She wanted so much to get sent home to spend Mothers Day with Coda and when she did she posted this moving message on social media.

“It’s not my ideal to be a 38 year old Mom who needs an oxygen tank to survive right now. I want to be strong and beautiful for her. I want to show her how to move throughout this world with compassion, strength, vivacity, humor and joy like my Mother showed me,” she wrote in the now heartbreaking Instagram post.

The actress, who also appeared in the tv shows “Blue Bloods,” “City on a Hill,” “The Good Fight” and others, died just four days before her 38th birthday.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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