October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and at Anthropologie, we’re proud to partner with Living Beyond Breast Cancer to celebrate #StrengthInStories.

When we share our stories – especially the tough ones – we can learn, and grow, and heal. That’s why, this month, we’re lifting up survivors’ voices, each with a tale to tell.

Living Beyond Breast Cancer is a national organization, headquartered near our Home Office in Philadelphia, that connects women with a breast cancer diagnosis to the knowledge, resources, and support they need to thrive. (We hope you’ll donate to LBBC today!)

These four survivors are part of LBBC’s inspiring network, helping to build a resilient community from woman to woman and coast to coast.

When Jasmine was diagnosed with stage I breast cancer in 2016, she was 26 years old. She turned to reading, writing, and blogging to help channel her swirling emotions, and discovered a gift for advocacy. As she underwent a bilateral mastectomy, reconstruction, and 25 rounds of proton therapy radiation, Jasmine also discovered something missing from the breast cancer world: a place where women of color, like her, were centered. “It's cool to see someone achieve something, but it's different to see someone who looks like you achieve something,” Jasmine says. “Seeing women who look like you live 20 years with metastatic breast cancer, find doctors to help them carry their child to full term...the list goes on...brings defying the odds and blazing your own trail within reach, as it should be.”

So in 2019, together with Marissa T., a fellow survivor she’d met on social media, Jasmine co-founded For the Breast of Us, an inclusive breast cancer community for women of color that helps members learn from each other, access the best resources, and even find clinical trials to join. “We do this all in the pursuit of health equity, better outcomes, and easier cancer journeys for the women diagnosed after us,” she says.

Soon after founding their own organization, Jasmine and Marissa joined LBBC as part of its Young Advocate program. “The most valuable thing I learned from LBBC was my advocacy didn't have to look like the next person's,” Jasmine says. “Something I love to do, like blogging, can be used as a form of advocacy by sharing my personal experience. I don't have to have thousands of followers to be an influencer.”

“As a young woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer, I not only had a hard time finding women like myself who I could relate to, but I also did not see any images online or at my cancer center of women like me,” says Marissa, who was 35 when she learned she had stage II invasive ductal carcinoma. “My breast cancer was 35% ER-positive, which is rare,” she says, so she was treated as though she had triple-negative cancer, one of the most difficult types to manage.

As a woman of color, “I felt like an outlier but I knew that wasn't true,” she says.

She and Jasmine “realized we could unite all of us together – we just needed to build the platform.” That platform, of course, is now For the Breast of Us.

"Living Beyond Breast Cancer has helped me gain my voice within the breast cancer community,” Marissa says. “They’ve equipped me with tools I can use for myself, but also help other women of color have access to.”

She says one of the things missing from conversations about breast cancer is an open discussion of metastatic breast cancer, the statistics, and the dire need for research. “We need to move towards action, and that action comes from standing and fighting with our sisters living with metastatic breast cancer,” she says. “We need to demand that companies and lawmakers partner with organizations like LBBC to support them.”

“I learned about LBBC a few months after my breast cancer diagnosis in 2015,” says Shehzin, who was 27 at the time. She was diagnosed with stage I ER, PR-positive breast cancer, had a double mastectomy with reconstruction, and began a 10-year course of tamoxifen, a treatment that selectively blocks the body's hormones.

“I tapped into the resources to educate myself on my diagnosis, treatment and managing side effects,” she says. A few years later, she joined LBBC's Young Advocates.

“I believe that advances in research and changes in public policy have the most critical impact on survivors,” she says, “especially since we have spent decades raising awareness for breast cancer but are no closer to finding a cure and still have many strides to make for treating metastatic breast cancer.”

Today, she’s an advocate in research and legislative policy, a consumer reviewer for the Department of Defense’s Breast Cancer Research Program, and a graduate of Project LEAD, a science training program run by the National Breast Cancer Coalition.

After pausing her treatment last year to try to conceive, Shehzin welcomed a baby girl – “my post-cancer baby,” she says – with her husband, just weeks ago.

“When I was first facing my diagnosis, I wish I’d known about the resources available to young women with breast cancer,” she says. “And I wish I'd known that young women can get breast cancer.”

It was more than a decade ago that Joy found out she had early-stage breast cancer. “When I was diagnosed with metastatic cancer two years ago, it felt like I was starting my journey all over,” she says. “I was looking for resources that could prepare me, and LBBC had those resources, information, and just strategies on how to deal with the diagnosis.”

“LBBC is a hidden gem,” says Joy, who is part of its advocacy program for women with metastatic breast cancer called Hear My Voice. “They get that everyone's journey isn't the same, and they design their programs and outreach with that in mind.”

The number-one piece of advice she shares with other women: “You are the best advocate for your health. If something doesn't feel right, bring it up.”

“Every day I have to advocate for myself,” says Joy, whether it’s with her insurance company, prescription plan provider, doctor, family, or employer. “It’s hard enough for someone who doesn’t have cancer, but when you do, it has to be on a different level.”

So, she always says, “Don’t apologize for self-advocating!” And if you need support navigating the intimidating web of medical, financial, and emotional decisions – ask.

“There are so many resources, and so many people here to help you.”


Donate to Living Beyond Breast Cancer today!