In fact, the self-proclaimed “Energizer Bunny” remembers a recent photo shoot where she had five outfit changes but could only get through three before she felt like she needed to take a nap. It was around that same time that Cardarelli says she felt a lump in her breast.

“It was in an area of very dense tissue and I remember thinking, ‘Maybe I’m in my head a little bit,’” she says. “But something in my gut was like, ‘This feels a little bit different to me.’ That’s when I went and I got checked out and I found out that it was a malignant tumor.”

Cardarelli says she wasn’t completely surprised by the diagnosis. She had watched her mom struggle with colon cancer for more than a decade.

“I mean, it was shocking, but I knew something in my body was different,” says Cardarelli, who is on track to release her new single “Leave Me Tennessee” next month.

And while Cardarelli prioritizes workouts and good nutrition — and taking care of herself both physically and mentally — she says she has come to realize that cancer does not discriminate.

“I feel fear and sadness,” Cardarelli says. “I’m like, why did this happen? I do not fit the profile of somebody that should get cancer at 33 years old. So yes, there’s a little bit of anger there. But I’m not angry at God. I’m leaning on Him more than ever.”

She’s also upset that her mom has to witness it all. “The fact that my mother, who has had stage 4 cancer for the last 12 years, has to now help her daughter navigate this, is very unfair,” Cardarelli says.

But thanks to a supportive team of close family and friends, Cardarelli says she is ready to beat the disease.

“I’m in the process of waiting for some tests to come back for more information so we can gather the full treatment plan,” says Cardarelli, who will now be treated by the same oncologist that has been treating her mother at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “And what I’m learning is that plan is ever-changing. It’s like we get one result and then we’re waiting for another result. It’s going to be a journey. We’re pretty sure surgery is first and then we have to decide a treatment plan after that.”

But doctors are hopeful.

“They are confident this can be eradicated and I will hopefully live a very long, normal and healthy and happy life,” she says. “I’m just trying to take things truly one day at a time, sometimes one minute at a time, and somehow stay in the moment as I absorb all this life flipping on its head within the last few weeks.”

She adds, “I do trust that something good will come from this. My hope is that young women hear my story and understand the importance of knowing their bodies, trusting their instincts and advocating for themselves. If sharing my story encourages even one young woman to advocate for herself, listen to her body, or get checked sooner, then I believe there is purpose in this.”

It’s an idea that Cardarelli once sang about in her 2020 song “Strong” with Charles Esten. The lyrics are about her mom’s cancer diagnosis, and how much she admired her strength. “I never imagined I’d hear those lyrics through the lens of my own diagnosis,” she says. “The song has taken on a whole new meaning for me. What began as a tribute to my mother and her cancer struggles is now a reminder of strength for me too. I’m just glad to have the support system I have.”

And the strongest piece of that support system remains her husband, Brian.

“Brian has been by my side through everything,” she says. “He’s been my rock through this whole thing. Every tough conversation, every doctor’s appointment, he’s right there helping me. I could not have dreamed up a more perfect man to help me through this season. Even though this whole thing has been a nightmare, I feel like the luckiest girl alive in a lot of ways.”

Jillian Cardarelli Talks About Finding True Love — in Her Condo Complex! — with Brian Parker

“It’s so ironic that I am releasing such a sad song when I am really the happiest,” Cardarelli tells PEOPLE, the bride-to-be will officially tie the knot in May

From the time she was just a little kid, Jillian Cardarelli loved singing a good heartbreak song. From George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today” to Dolly Parton’s “I’ll Always Love You,” the Massachusetts native has always found a certain comfort in the forlorn, long before she even knew what heartbreak was.

“I just love the storytelling and the emotion of a sad country song,” Cardarelli, 28, tells PEOPLE in a recent interview. “Give me a steel guitar and a sad lyric, and I am totally in.”

And yes, the country music songstress certainly sounds in her element singing her current single “If You Had a Heart,” an all-female powerhouse of a production consisting of writers Alex Kline, Erin Enderlin, Liz Hengber and Kellys Collins.

“We can all relate to heartbreak at one time or another,” explains Cardarelli. “My last two singles were sort of fun and flirty, so I was ready to release a more serious song. It gives people the chance to get to know all aspects of me as an artist. It also allowed me to draw from past experiences and hear what I wanted to hear when I was in moments like that. I’m not experiencing heartbreak in this moment, you know.”

Because while professionally, Cardarelli finds herself dwelling in the lyrical tidal wave of love gone wrong, personally she is experiencing all that happens when love goes right, courtesy of her engagement to longtime boyfriend Brian Parker.

“It’s so ironic that I am releasing such a sad song when I am really the happiest,” says Cardarelli, whose single “Strong” with Nashville star Charles Esten was written in honor of her own mother’s battle with cancer. “As I’m singing about heartbreak, I am simultaneously planning my May 2021 wedding. But the fact is that a good song always prevails, even when it’s about heartbreak.”

The story of how Cardarelli met her match may just be as ironic as her song choices as of late.

“We met five years ago in Nashville,” Cardarelli says of fiancé Brian Parker, a well-known sports agent in Nashville that she likes to refer to as her “very own, real-life Jerry Maguire,” referring to the 1996 romantic comedy starring Tom Cruise playing, yes, a sports agent. “We were next-door neighbors in the same condo complex. He used to call me in for singing and playing guitar really late. It was sort of serendipitous that we met outside the building.”

The two had their first date at a little Italian restaurant down the street from their condo, and the rest, as they say, is history. The two got engaged in Central Park in New York City in November of 2019.

“He totally surprised me,” Cardarelli remembers. “We were just on our normal morning walk, but it quickly turned out to be the most special walk of my life.”

And unlike so many other engaged couples who were forced to postpone their planned weddings due to the ongoing pandemic, Cardarelli and Parker say they had always planned on a May 2021 wedding from the very start.

“We wanted to take our time and enjoy being engaged,” she says. “It’s crazy to think that we were able to stick with our original date, despite everything that has been going on since we got engaged. I’m just so glad it worked out this way.”

And while she is busy putting the finishing touches on the final plans for her upcoming wedding, Cardarelli says she is relishing in the realization that heartbreak is often a part of even the most beautiful of love stories…even hers.

“I always think about the Rascal Flatts song ‘God Bless the Broken Road,'” she says quietly. “Every heartache and bump in the road brought me to the man of my dreams. Everything happens for a reason.”