While breast cancer is commonly regarded as something to be proactive about after 40, on this series, Breast Cancer At Any Age, we speak to women who had scares or battled breast cancer at a much younger age than expected.

“Generational.”

That’s how Ashley Dedmon would describe cancer and the impact the disease has had on her family. “On my maternal side, my great-grandmother, my grandmother and my mother were diagnosed with breast cancer,” she tells ESSENCE. Her mother was 49 when she was diagnosed with metastatic or Stage 4 breast cancer, dying from it on the age of 52. She passed in early 2007, and months afterward, Dedmon received a call that may turn her world the other way up even greater than it already was.

“That fall, my dad called me while I used to be on campus [at Prairie View A&M] attempting to finally end up with my graduation requirements and shared with me that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer,” she says. “And I believe that’s really when it shook me; that’s once I was scared for my life because I just truly saw death throughout me and I saw what this disease was doing. I actually, for the primary time, felt like I used to be next, prefer it was on the horizon for me.”

But Dedmon wouldn’t let that be her story. On the age of twenty-two, she decided to get proactive and hunt down genetic testing to know exactly what her family was coping with.

“I didn’t wish to die,” she says. “I knew I used to be at some extent in my life where I had a call to make, and that was to either let this disease proceed to wreak havoc in my family or take control of it. And that’s what I did.”

She continues, “I needed to alter the trajectory of this disease, and that was done through knowledge and thru reaching out to my OB-GYN. And he or she was a Black woman, and I loved her because she at all times told me, ‘If your loved ones history changes, don’t wait to your annual, call me and update me. When you discover more information along the best way, call me.’ And in order that’s what I did, and he or she empowered me.”

Her doctor helped her to get the BRCA evaluation test, Myriad’s MyRisk hereditary cancer test. Through it, Dedmon came upon that she was positive for BRCA2, breast cancer gene 2, and had the next risk of developing breast cancer or ovarian cancer. She began seeing a high-risk oncologist and was made aware of her options. There was hormone therapy, increased surveillance, and prophylactic, or preventative, procedures. Because she was just 22, Dedmon opted for increased surveillance. She got her first mammogram at that age, and for nearly a decade, every six months, she was undergoing breast ultrasounds and MRIs, in addition to transvaginal ultrasounds to regulate her ovarian health.

Once she married and welcomed her first child, a daughter, Dedmon began to feel that increased surveillance was not enough. “I needed a recent plan of action. After which that following visit with my high-risk oncologist, I desired to hear more about prophylactic procedures.”

At 31, she would determine to undergo a preventative double mastectomy, which stirred up a variety of complicated feelings.

“It triggered anger from losing my mom. It was doubt. I used to be really fighting my faith during that point,” she shares. “I felt alone. I felt like, on the time, I actually didn’t know one other one who was like me. And by that I mean I didn’t know too many other women who carry a BRCA mutation, let alone them be Black, and so I felt alone.”

But her family members reminded her of the truth, which was that she needed to take motion. “I had multiple breast cancer diagnoses on my mother’s side. I had a father who had prostate cancer, and the actual fact was, I carried this mutation, and I actually have an increased risk in comparison with the common woman, who was at a 12 to fifteen percent risk over her lifetime. And so, when I noticed that what I used to be doing was making an informed decision, and really just praying about it and letting it go, I felt empowered. And in order that’s form of what got me to the surgery.”

After the mastectomy, it was a journey for Dedmon to process every little thing she’d been through and to feel confident again. “It took time. It took time to heal physically. It took time to heal mentally. It took time to construct my stamina back up and get lively again,” she says. “It took years to actually discover my recent normal. And there have been intimacy challenges, just me mentally having to get past this expectation, not that my husband placed on me, but just society has of what sexy or beautiful is. And having to actually get past that and understand that I made a call to be here for my daughter and my future children. So my husband was very just supportive and really just reassuring that I had made the suitable decision.”

Following her preventative double mastectomy, she underwent reconstructive surgery with implants three months later, in addition to a further revision surgery. She went on to have her second child too, one other daughter, further confirming that she made the suitable decision as she raises two little girls now. Nowadays, she sees her oncologist annually for clinical exams rather than mammograms, as they’re not mandatory post-mastectomy. She continues to undergo transvaginal ultrasounds in addition to blood work every six months and sees a gynecologic oncologist to observe her ovarian health. And now, she tries to tell and educate others in regards to the importance of genetic testings, including family and friends, like her dad. Thankfully, her father is a prostate cancer survivor. He underwent genetic testing at her coaxing, despite initial hesitance.

“He was like, ‘Well, you bought it from Mom.’ And I used to be like, ‘Yeah, probably so. But Dad, you had prostate cancer and BRCA2 is a number one marker for that. That’s the first reason why we want to know. But secondary, I would like some closure. I would like to know what information to proceed to pass on to your grandchildren and your grandchildren.’ And I believe for him, if you bring up grandkids, that may do it,” she says.

In the long run, his test got here back negative, so it’s believed that the mutation got here from Dedmon’s maternal side. With that information, she and her daughters are capable of be answerable for their risk management, and in turn, their standard of care in the longer term.

She hopes that by sharing her story, she may also help other Black women be answerable for their very own care. That features going to annual visits, getting those mammograms, asking questions, and after they don’t get the answers they need, finding one other doctor to make it occur. And most significantly, if there’s a family history of cancer, she encourages others to tap into genetic testing. By undergoing it herself, Dedmon has empowered her daughters. As they grow up and judge proceed knowing their genetic makeup, they’ll fight tooth and nail as she did to proceed to alter the trajectory of cancer of their family.

“I’m preparing my girls and talking to them about their family history, about grandma and great-great grandma and so forth. And even about me carrying the mutation that I actually have and what their risks are. And so I believe it’s just preparing them now to do what my mom did; be certain that I feel empowered about my body and speaking up for myself when something doesn’t feel right, or look right, or smell right or regardless of the case could also be,” says Dedmon. “And in addition educating them on after they do express changes with their body and pain to not allow anybody, not even myself, to dismiss it.”

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