What happened, in summary

Lucy was diagnosed with breast cancer 3 days after her 24th birthday. Her risk was already personal: her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer twice and, after the second diagnosis, learned she carried a BRCA1 mutation. Lucy then had genetic testing and also found out she had inherited BRCA1. Because she was only 23 at the time, she had not yet started routine scans, so she relied on monthly self-checks. In summer 2021, she felt a breast lump that came and went over about 2 to 3 months. Several clinicians thought it felt like fibrous tissue, and ultrasound was only mildly abnormal, but because Lucy was BRCA1-positive, the team did a biopsy. On October 13, she learned it was cancer. The video description identifies the tumor as grade 3 triple-negative breast cancer, and later testing showed cancer in some underarm lymph nodes. More scans checked the other breast and the rest of her body. Lucy then moved quickly through fertility preservation and started chemotherapy in December. She also later had a double mastectomy. As of January 2023, Lucy was reflecting on the shock of diagnosis, the loss of hair and breasts, and the support of her mother, who had gone through a very similar treatment path.