Did I eat too much sugar? Am I exposed to too much plastic? People are quick to tell me their own theories, like birth control or storing my phone in a bra. Everyone around me was trying to understand how this could happen to someone my age. Because if it can happen to me, it can happen to them.
When my family and I asked the doctor, she said it was simply bad luck. Life is random. There is nothing I can do or do. But that doesn’t make it any less offensive to me or to other adults who find themselves in this situation.
Only in 2022 4 percent Among American women under 40, invasive breast cancer is diagnosed. But recent studies show that more young people are getting cancer, including breast cancer.
It’s hard for young patients like me to wrap our minds around randomness.
It was June 2023 when I first noticed a large lump on my breast while taking a shower. I dismissed it at first, but when it didn’t go away, I told my primary care doctor that I was concerned. She wrote me an appointment for an ultrasound, but I had to wait three months for an appointment in DC
I had heard that cysts are common in young women, but I was scheduled for a biopsy right after the ultrasound. The image showed an abnormal mass that required further investigation. Worried, I asked my mom to fly from Phoenix to be with me.
As I walked into the exam room on Tuesday, I glanced at my paperwork. “Preliminary diagnosis: cancer,” he said.
A few days later, my doctor called with his first diagnosis: high-grade invasive ductal carcinoma, a fast-growing cancer The potential for expansion is high.. It was about five centimeters in size. It was level 2.
The long delay from finding a mass to ultrasound and diagnosis is just one way young cancer patients are often not taken seriously. I have heard that there are women whose doctors do not recommend mammograms because they are considered too young. Colon cancer patients sometimes have hemorrhoids instead of cancer.
Making decisions about reproduction
I decided to go to Arizona to be with my family for treatment. At my new hospital, I learned more about my diagnosis, as I had triple positive breast cancer, which responds well to chemotherapy and targeted therapy. I also learned that I can use a technology called cold capping to save my hair.
I felt a lot of pressure on my decision not to fertilize my eggs because my treatment was affecting my fertility. I knew right away that it wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to subject myself to more intrusive medical procedures, and having biological children was never important to me. My doctors and family wanted me to fully understand the gravity of my decision and gave me many opportunities to change my mind, but I couldn’t.
I decided to try to save my hair. The treatment requires a special frozen cap – like a swimming cap – that is worn tightly around the head before, during and after a chemotherapy session. Many people warned me that the cold hat hurts, but after the first 10 minutes I didn’t find it that bad. It was like walking without a beanie in the snow. It was uncomfortable during the chemotherapy sessions, but it was useful to maintain some sense of normality. I lost a lot of hair after my last treatment, but my doctors still compliment me on how much I was able to keep.
Finding comfort in the ‘still alive’ club
I am grateful to be at a hospital that has a young adult program for patients like me. When a procedure was done to implant a port in my chest to make chemotherapy easier, I was upset with a nurse specializing in youth. She walked me through the empty chemo room so I knew what to expect before my first treatment.
After I received my full treatment plan, she introduced me to a support group. We meet to meet once a month. Some people, like me, have recently been diagnosed or re-diagnosed, and others have completed five years of remission. When I joined, the group made me feel lonely. I know they’ve all been where I’ve been.
At team meetings, we share inspiring stories like intravenous catheters and central line placements — or good doctors and early hospital discharges. We talk about playing Pokemon and The Sims to distract ourselves. We follow each other on Instagram.
We try to lighten our hearts as we paint Thanksgiving turkeys on the table, decorate gingerbread houses, or make vision boards while laughing. Team members joke about being part of the “still alive” club and how it’s not “cancer-free” but “cancer-quiet”—a way of saying our lives won’t be completely cancer-free, as we deal with ongoing diagnoses and lingering symptoms. But because of cancer, we can live our lives relatively quietly.
We are all in unique battles, which remind us how unfair our circumstances are. We were the “lucky ones”. But “why me?” Instead of asking, we regret being us. None of us want to be there or have a common understanding that we shouldn’t be there, but it is there.
Although I completed six rounds of chemotherapy and underwent surgery, my journey was not over. I worry about redundancy. I wonder where I’ll end up when all this is over, when I leave my job on leave and leave DC life to see my friends fighting their own battles with cancer and other young people trying to understand why. This happened to them.
I remember the first time I went in for an MRI. The test will determine if the cancer has spread elsewhere. The lady at the front desk asked me my birthday as I took off my wristband.
“We have the same birthday,” she said. Month, day, year, everything.
I laughed it off at first, but the moment stuck with me. We were on opposite sides of the table.