Andrea de Armas shares her unexpected breast cancer diagnosis right before starting physician assistant school, highlighting the need for awareness even in youth. She discusses her background, love for sports, and how her life changed, emphasizing the importance of health. This story also offers inspiration for med students navigating sudden challenges.
[Transcript]
I was born and raised in Miami, Florida. Grew up around a lot of sports culture, and Miami's really big on the sports. Now I'm a physician assistant student. That's kind of what I'm studying, interested in medicine. I like to hang out with friends, exercise regularly, a pretty like normal life. Two days before starting PA school, I found out that I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and that's kind of where my journey starts here.
While breast cancer is still most common in older women, we are seeing more younger women being diagnosed with breast cancer, with about a 2% annual increase over the last five years for women under the age of 50.
This really kind of came as a surprise. One day, not even doing a breast exam, I noticed kind of like a lump on the outside of my breast, and I thought it was interesting. But, being my age, I was like, "Oh, it's probably like a cyst." I was diagnosed May 8th, 2023 with breast cancer.
So Andrea was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma, and this is the most common type of breast cancer that we see, accounting for about 80% of all breast cancers.
As soon as I found out I had cancer, I knew I was going to go towards the more aggressive surgery approach, which was a double mastectomy with reconstruction, just for like my sake and peace of mind.
After our first consultation, when Andrea and I discussed her treatment options, she had decided on bilateral mastectomies from the get-go, even before she knew she had a genetic mutation.
Dr. Lopez-Penalver is probably one of the most personable surgeons I've met. She pretty much knew where my head was at. She gave me my options, and she made me feel just so comfortable because she laid out every single option that I had. I never felt pushed to a corner because of my age or because of my predisposition. It was just really nice to know that every time I knew what I wanted to do, she was confident and on board too with my plan.
This is not a one-size-fits-all approach.
My timeline's a little different than a normal person's. 'Cause like I said, I was starting PA school, and I was adamant on staying as long as I could.
So we kind of tailored her treatment and opted to perform a lumpectomy and a sentinel node biopsy, and then give her the opportunity to have the mastectomy with reconstruction electively when she had more time to recuperate from that.
Post that surgery, we started chemo immediately, probably like 20 days later. Chemo ran from June to November. After that, I have a break in school, so I was able to have my surgery in December. So December 19th, 2023, I had bilateral mastectomy reconstruction. I had radiation that starts sometime in February. It was only three weeks. So by the end of February I was done with radiation, and active treatment was closed February 27th, 2024. Any time I've ever been to MCI, and I'm not even kidding, I have never met a person who's not helpful.
Andrea is a very strong woman. She's amazing. She wants to become a PA, and she's not going to let breast cancer stand in her way of that. She has an excellent prognosis, and I think she's going to continue to do very well because she's very strong, very determined, and has a very positive outlook.
This narrative, it's like one chapter. It's not my whole story. I don't feel back to normal because I don't think I'll ever be that person again, and that's totally fine. But I do feel like I'm in a great place. I feel like every other 28-year-old in Miami. So I would recommend MCI to literally anyone and for so many reasons that I probably didn't even mention.
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