Cancer. It’s a daunting word that’s a distant fear for most people our age.
Taylor Carr, a 21-year-old from Atlanta, GA, is much too familiar and much too young.
While shopping with her mom last December, Carr got a call that would change her life.
“My initial thought was that my life was over. I didn’t know if I would survive, I kept asking myself, ‘Why me?’” she said.
Being diagnosed with breast cancer at 20 would shake anyone this way. You’re supposed to worry about what you’re going to wear on New Year’s Eve, whether or not you’ll find an internship this summer or how long you can put off studying for an exam.
You’re not supposed to wonder whether you’ll live or die.
This is why she initially shrugged off a noticeable lump in her left breast. ‘It will probably go away – maybe it’s a hormone thing,’ she thought. The “hormone thing” became painful, though, and she couldn’t shrug it off any longer.
The pain eventually brought her to the gynecologist, and she was put on antibiotics. Surprisingly, even to a medical professional, it seemed like nothing.
Unfortunately, antibiotics proved to be no match for her tumor – it grew significantly within two weeks. After an ultrasound and a mammogram, it was clear: This “hormone thing” was definitely something.
It turned out to be Stage 3a HER2+ breast cancer.
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