Meet the Models, NYC: Virginia Tomenson

Virginia “Gina” Tomenson was a busy 31 year old embracing all that NYC life had to offer when, while at a workout class, she found a lump in her breast. Knowing “something was up,” she went to the doctor who confirmed a stage 3 breast cancer diagnosis with spread to the lymph nodes. With no family history, it came as a complete shock.

Immediately, Gina was catapulted into a “tsunami of appointments and procedures” and given her age, specific attention to family planning. Only six months into a relationship at the time, she cites fertility preservation as a “make or break moment,” in her relationship, but it would come as only one of a series of hardships. Gina received surgery, chemo and radiation, losing her hair along the way. Throughout it all, her family and friends rallied around her: “I went from going out and having fun to having dates at chemo appointments. Our dating life really turned from trying new restaurants to spending a lot of time hanging around Sloane Kettering and dealing with hair loss, chemo and surgery.”

Particularly difficult was the lack of awareness and attention to younger women with breast cancer. Whether it be waiting rooms with women much older, or when all of the reconstruction pictures catered to older women, Gina “felt out of place and in the dark.”

A nice contrast to that darkness? Her boyfriend, who became her fiancé when he proposed after a radiation appointment one day. Today, the two have two children, both born via gestational carrier. For Gina, it was important to “make other people’s experience easier and help make their tomorrow better. Ever since diagnosis, I have spent a lot of time volunteering and doing advocacy for getting fertility preservation covered, as well as gestational carrier coverage in New York. It has shaped my life in the sense that I have found purpose in advocacy.”

While her reasons for honoring her journey on the runway seem obvious, Gina’s purpose became greater when 1.5 years ago, complications from radiation on her skin led to an infection and in the end, the removal of both of her breasts. With no option for reconstruction, Gina hopes to show that being flat is something to celebrate too because “what’s healthiest for my body is what’s healthiest. That is what is most important.”