Everything I Thought I Knew About Breast Cancer Was Wrong

I grew up in a small town right outside of Austin, Texas, called Wimberley, on a little chicken farm with my big family. We had a family band; my dad’s a bluegrass musician, and my mom’s a writer. They’re hippies, but I always wanted to be an actress—my life plan was always to move to L.A. and be a sitcom star. So I got my degree, moved out to L.A. in 2014, and shortly after that, was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer. I was just 26, had no family history, and had always been really healthy. It was already incurable. It was already, “You have two to five years to live.”

When I found that out, I was on my break between working double shifts at a fancy restaurant in L.A. I was going full force to make my acting dream happen. I had an agent, was going to auditions all the time, and was doing stand-up comedy and improv. I was busy, busy, busy. It was the guy I’d been dating for about a year (who I’d just moved in with) who noticed a lump in my breast. I wasn’t worried; my older sister had a benign lump removed, so I figured it was the same thing. I called the office of the gynecologist I’d seen for years, but saw a different doctor because my doctor was out of town. They told me not to worry—it was just a lump, I was too young for breast cancer. I believed them, because who am I, with my acting degree, to question a medical doctor?

But not only did the lump not go away, when I’d turn to the side and look in the mirror, I could visibly see it; it was getting bigger. I went to another doctor, who said the same thing, but I was starting to feel weird—like nobody was really listening to me. He prescribed an ultrasound, but my insurance wouldn’t cover it because I was too young and had no family history. The third doctor I went to helped me fight my insurance and get one. By then, it had been nine months since we found the lump. That whole time, I was just trying to, you know, be a good patient. The biggest health problem I’d had was getting chlamydia once in college, or getting my tonsils out. Every time I’d gone to a doctor, they’d made me better. I had no reason not to trust what doctors were saying. But in the nine months it took me to get a diagnosis, the breast cancer had already spread to my liver. It was metastatic. I was like, “What? What do you mean it’s too late? What do you mean, I didn’t catch it early? I’ve been doing this for nine months.”

I was still processing this while driving, that same day, to the oncologist they recommended. Again, I was a good patient; I just went along with it. But that oncologist was not great. He kept telling me that I was going to die and needed to accept that, and he shared terrible statistics. I eventually walked out of that office and said to my mom—who’d moved out to L.A. and stayed in an Airbnb to support me—“I don’t ever want to go back there again.” Instead, I went and got a second opinion and a third opinion. That’s one piece of advice I give people who are newly diagnosed: Don’t let anybody rush you or tell you that you don’t have time to get more opinions and figure out your best treatment plan. The time you take now could add time to your life later. Treating cancer is an art—a science, yes, but also an art.