COLUMBUS, Ohio — Younger women usually don’t think about getting breast cancer and since mammograms aren’t recommended for women under 40, they don’t think they have to. However, if you ask Elisa DiMeo and Bess Hagans, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Both were diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age.
DiMeo was just 24 in 2020 when she was told she had Stage 1 breast cancer. Hagans was 32 when she was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in 2021.
The two women share a special bond. They found strength in each other while facing their own mortality.
“I don’t like statistics because they freak us out sometimes,” said DiMeo. “But I think one that holds very true and is very telling is that within the past five years, the women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer under the age of 40 has doubled. That’s highly concerning.”
Hagans was a new mom when she was diagnosed.
After five rounds of IVF, she finally became pregnant with her daughter Margot. Shortly after her birth, Hagans received the bad news.
“Getting that diagnosis was the most heartbreaking thing that I could have possibly heard at that time,” says Hagans. “After working so hard to get her here and then hearing that I had Stage 3 cancer, immediately I thought that meant death.”
Breast cancer had never crossed her mind.
She had never had a mammogram; she wasn’t old enough she thought. Nobody had ever told her to do self-breast exams. She didn’t even know how. Now, here she was, a 34-year-old woman with a double mastectomy.
Young women are a very niche population with a different set of challenges than post-menopausal women who are diagnosed with breast cancer.
“As a mom, it’s disappointing because I had an infant and was not able to breast feed,” said Hagans. “In terms of your physical relationship with your husband, you know, you look different. You don’t know yourself, your husband doesn’t really know you, even if they’re supportive, you’re a different person after you get cancer.”
Breast cancer brought DiMeo and Hagans together and the fact that more and more younger women, like them, are getting diagnosed has fueled a lot of the passion and purpose behind what they do.
They’ve started a non-profit organization called “Thriving Beyond Breast Cancer.”
It’s become their mission to provide community, mental health support and financial assistance for people under 40 diagnosed with breast cancer.
“When you’re a young lady going through treatment, you shouldn’t have to worry about affording your chemo pill, or affording your next hormone infusion, or being able to afford fertility preservation so that you have the opportunity to have a future family,” DiMeo told 10TV. “We want to lift that burden for women.”
A study published in the medical journal "Jama" showed the rate of late-stage breast cancer in younger women has been climbing.
"I think that that's one of the really big takeaways... if you are a young person, you should be doing self breast exams because if you're not doing them regularly, you could end up with late stage cancer. I was really lucky that I caught it right before it turned terminal," Hagans said. "I just hope it doesn’t come back."
Both women also host a podcast together where they share their lives with their listeners with no topic considered off limit.
"It's very raw and we keep it very raw for a reason because our community needs that," DiMeo said.
To learn more or to help their cause, visit their website.