By Mylika Scatliffe
AFRO Women’s Health Writer
As reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women in the United States. About 9 percent of all new cases of breast cancer in the United States are found in women younger than age 45. Breast cancer in younger women is more likely to be found at a later stage, frequently is more aggressive and difficult to treat, and is more common among Black women.
A cancer diagnosis can put anyone in a dark place mentally and emotionally. Intellectually, most people know that anyone can get cancer. Almost everyone’s life has been touched directly or indirectly by someone with cancer. Intellect aside, most people rightfully associate it with something that probably won’t happen until later in life.
Imagine the toll on your mental health to experience it in the prime of your life.
Ronda Brunson of Miami, Fla., certainly didn’t expect to be diagnosed with breast cancer at age 40.
In the years leading to her diagnosis, that Baltimore native endured multiple emotional traumas. In 2015, a close friend that was more like a brother was killed in Baltimore. Not long after that, her father and uncle died. Then her favorite aunt dropped dead, her dog was hit by a car and she endured a traumatic break-up as a result of her now ex-boyfriend’s infidelity.
Sick and tired of life and needing a change, she relocated to southern Florida.
One day while showering in August 2022, Brunson discovered a lump in her breast. But trauma hadn’t quite released its grip on Brunson’s life: shortly afterwards, a beloved aunt and her grandmother died within three weeks of each other in September 2022.
Brunson was dealing with so much that she didn’t immediately follow up on the lump. Within a couple months she had a mammogram and ultrasound. She received a diagnosis in November 2022.
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