Young woman diagnosed with breast cancer looks to the future
The last thing Ameilia Boudushin Gopi remembers before she passes out on the delivery bed is holding her daughter Alana for the first time.
she felt nothing. No connection. There is no love.
“Who is this?” she remembers thinking about the baby. She then bled for 45 minutes.
Gopy, who lives in Florida, said the feelings of maternal love she envisioned during her pregnancy were not felt in the days following Alana’s birth and her own recovery. Weeks passed, then months passed. Gopee, who was 39 when Alana was born in August 2022, spent eight months battling postnatal depression before starting to form a real connection with her daughter.
But when she began to become independent as a mother, her world fell apart. On Christmas Eve 2024, 42-year-old Gopee was diagnosed with breast cancer while caring for her two-year-old daughter.
Breast cancer incidence is increasing among young women. Additionally, women under the age of 50 are nearly twice as likely as younger men to be diagnosed with some form of cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Early detection and more treatment options have made it possible for breast cancer patients and survivors to live longer and healthier lives after diagnosis, but those with maternal duties told USA TODAY that juggling treatment and motherhood is nearly impossible.
After undergoing a round of chemotherapy, Gopy said she felt numb from the pain. Alana was still sleeping in her crib at the time, and Gopy heard her daughter crying while her husband was at work.
She got out of bed of her own accord, crawled onto the floor and crawled into Alana’s room. She persuaded Alana to get out of her crib and go to Gopi, then they climbed into Gopi’s bed, where she called her husband for help.
Her husband asked why she didn’t call sooner. Gopi knew he had to do it. “But the mother in me needed to listen to her child. And she needed me.”
Mothers tend to put themselves off
Mothers and caregivers tend to prioritize the health of their loved ones over their own health. Dr. Arif Kamal, chief patient officer for the American Cancer Society, said that’s the problem when it comes to early detection of cancer.
She worries that because cancer is more common in people in their 60s and 70s, young women may skip mammogram appointments or postpone follow-up visits due to questionable mammogram results by taking their children to soccer or their parents to doctor’s appointments. Simply put, Kamal says, women of the sandwich generation don’t think they can get cancer.
And when young patients are diagnosed with cancer, they often don’t think about what life will be like after cancer. For breast cancer, where the survival rate is 91%, that’s an important consideration, Kamal said.
“We think people get cancer when they’re most financially resilient, which would be later in life. But you know, if you go bankrupt at age 40, what are the chances you’ll still have an active 401(k) at age 65?” Kamal said.
Young women with cancer may be in the midst of their careers or in the most difficult stages of raising children, adding to the stress of the diagnosis. Kamal worries about these patients’ social lives, their financial health, and even their fertility if they want to have children, all of which he thinks about older patients less or not at all.
Michelle Wessel, 52, was 39 years old when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her daughter was in middle school. Wessel said she had no intention of having more children when she was sterilized during her first treatment. Years later, she wonders what her life would have been like if she had had a little more time to think ahead.
“That would have been nice,” Wessel said. “I wanted to give her a brother.”
“I didn’t want my children to see me suffering.”
When Kiki Rourke Adams was 37 years old, she felt a lump in her right breast and pain radiating from her right armpit. In 2018, she saw three doctors over five months before being cleared to undergo a mammogram. Six days later she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“I don’t know why I was being ignored,” she said.
Rourke Adams had three children, ages 16, 14 and 8, and was working full time at the time of her diagnosis. But after her double mastectomy, she said, “I was off work for six weeks. I couldn’t even breathe and it hurt so much.” During those weeks, she rarely left her recliner, “sitting in the chair and being a mom,” she said.
“I didn’t want my children to see me suffering. I have to hide it from them,” she said. “When your kids come home, you want to smile and act like everything is normal, because they’re babies, they’re kids, and they don’t need to see their mom go through something like that at that young age.”
Every mother and child is different. For Andrea Savage, who was 48 when she was diagnosed in 2023, the best way to navigate treatment while raising her then-9-year-old daughter was to be honest with him about everything she was going through.
“My approach from the beginning was to be completely transparent and honest with him, because what he assumed would probably be the worst-case scenario,” Savage said.
She said her bond with her son has grown stronger through his battle with cancer. But it was also difficult.
“Even if you’re having chemotherapy and you’re feeling nauseous, at the end of the day, you still have to get dinner on the table,” Savage says. She said that even while undergoing cancer treatment, she sat with her son every night and reviewed his homework.
“I want this to be the end.”
For women with breast cancer, the fight doesn’t stop when the cancer is gone. Savage says she’s now worried about it happening again. And the estrogen antagonists she takes cause “sudden menopause,” which is common among young breast cancer survivors, Kamal said. Rourke-Adams said the medication she was taking after cancer had a “negative effect” on her, leading to loss of bone density and hair loss.
“This is where it starts to take a toll mentally,” said Savage, who said she would be taking the drug for 10 years. “You don’t just have to prepare for the first year of getting through aggressive treatment; you have to prepare for the long term.”
Savage said parenting at this stage is more difficult than parenting during chemotherapy.
“When you’re going through chemotherapy, people are there for you. When you’re going through radiation, people are there for you. They’re sending you meals home,” she said. “But then their understanding is that you’re done. You’re back to normal…but nothing changes for you anymore.”
Rourke Adams’ older sister, Chalmela Rourke, was diagnosed with breast cancer four years after she was diagnosed with the disease. Her children were still adults when Rourke was diagnosed, and her daughter became her caregiver.
She now suffers from severe pain in her joints due to estrogen antagonists and worries about lingering cancer complications.
Rourke, 47, said: “I just want this to be over. No one is going to talk about this.”
Rourke Adams said it’s important to advocate for yourself and your body. Doctors are promoting the same message.
Kamal said it is essential for patients to know their family history, including when their family member contracted cancer and what type of cancer it is. From there, patients can work with their healthcare provider to create the best screening schedule.
Dr. Stuart Samuels, a radiation oncologist at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and one of Gopy’s doctors, said that even if you’re busy with your daily life, you should take a step back and make sure you get a screening breast exam. “A mother needs to take care of herself so that you can take care of your family in the future,” he said.
Madeline Mitchell’s role covering women and the care economy for USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Contact Madeline at: memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_With X.
