Breast Cancer in my 20’s
Alyssa Wakeley’s Story
Breast cancer changed the way Alyssa saw her body, her confidence, and her sense of femininity.
Diagnosed at 27 with stage III breast cancer, Alyssa went through chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, radiation, and reconstruction while raising two young children during the height of the pandemic.
She is honest about how hard it can be to look in the mirror after breast cancer, even after reconstruction.
“They may be perky, but you sometimes don’t feel like a woman,” she says. “It’s very hard mentally.”
Now, as she prepares to step onto the Runway stage, Alyssa wants other women to know that beauty is not something cancer gets to take away.
“No matter what changes have happened to your body, you are still a woman,” she says. “You’re still beautiful.”
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Boston Model, Completed Treatment
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When Monique was diagnosed with breast cancer at just 27 years old, it came out of nowhere. She had no family history. She found the lump herself. “I was completely shocked. I never imagined breast cancer would happen to me at such a young age.”
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At just 26 years old, Madeline was catapulted into the breast cancer world with ““the total unknown of what breast cancer looks like or how it would impact my life.”
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“a lot of people say that during treatment is the worst, but I think it’s after because you aren’t actively doing something, like going to appointments. You are left to process everything you just went through.”
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The experience of cancer, she notes, makes one confront their own mortality, but in the same token “you also learn how strong you are. Despite the struggle, I have learned I am a strong person who can persist and continue to enjoy life.” Indeed, though she get the phrase of ‘new normal,’ Justine prefers to say she’s reframed her life now: “You find a way to make a new life.”
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