Meet the Models, New England: Jenessa Dailey
Since the age of 30, Jenessa Dailey religiously received her mammogram. Paternal family history of the disease meant she was eligible for screening younger, but she never thought much of the process. It seemed so distant that a cancer diagnosis would ever happen to her. A mom of four young children, Jenessa taught fitness classes until her children were school aged, when she considered returning to work as a social worker. A call back after a suspicious mammogram would soon change those plans.
Assuming the re-test was due to a shadow on imaging, Jenessa was shocked to find out she had triple negative positive breast cancer. She found out on Friday, October 13, 2023. She is quick to note how lucky she was to benefit from the massive improvements science has made in treatment. Indeed, instead of traditional chemo, Jenessa qualified for a trial, a collaboration between MGH and Dana Farber, that involved intensely aggressive immunotherapy treatments- 10 in total: “I was sick and losing weight and exhausted, but I got through it.” After only four treatments, the cancer appeared gone. She did light chemo every three weeks until this July and at the time of our discussion, she had just received a double mastectomy: “I am sitting here in a nightgown because of all the drains post surgery, so I am in the thick of just about every way breast cancer can affect you.”
In all, Jenessa feels so grateful frequent monitoring caught her cancer before it spread throughout her body, but she is passionate about finding ways to advocate the government to allow for better, and more frequent, testing for women. She is particularly aware of how chemo is something that can only be understood if experienced: “If it can be that hard on me, who is fit and strong and can verbalize my emotions and feelings, can you imagine what it is like for a child?” This sentiment has encouraged Jenessa to find avenues to support the cancer community in ways she never would have prior to her own diagnosis. In fact, she soon will hit the cancer ward at hospitals dressed as a princess to bring light and happiness to those children in the thick of their battle. It’s just one of many things she can’t wait to do in the hopes to support the community she is now a part of. One of the other things? Hitting our runway in October. We have no doubt she’ll light it up.