Young Womens Breast Cancer Awareness Foundation (YWBCAF)

10/15/2026

❤️🥯 PANERA FUNDRAISER FOR YWBCAF & Cancer Bridges🥗💗

Let’s come together and make a difference! 🙌 Until the end of October, you can support YWBCAF and Cancer Bridges at any of the 31 Pittsburgh-area Panera locations in TWO easy ways!

🧾 1. ROUND UP at the register!
Every little bit helps! ❤️ Just ask to round up your purchase when checking out.

🥯🥗 2. ORDER PANERA CATERING!
Planning a school event, church gathering, tailgate, team meal, or family get-together? Let Panera help feed your tribe while giving back!

🎉 Panera will donate 15% of qualifying catering orders over $100!

💻 Use promo code: 4ACURE

Catering.panerabread.com

Whether you’re ordering bagels for breakfast 🥯, lunch for your team 🥗, or catering for your next gathering, you can help support two amazing organizations making a difference in our community. 💕

📣 Please SHARE this post and help spread the word! Every order, every round-up, and every share helps! ❤️

10/14/2026

10/14/2026

💚🩷🩵 LIGHT UP MBC 🩵🩷💚

Tonight, Pittsburgh lit up in all three colors of the metastatic breast cancer ribbon — teal, pink, and green — to honor those living with Stage IV breast cancer.

YWBCAF and the G***k Foundation hosted this special event to celebrate , remembering those we have lost and honoring the strength of those living with this disease.

Every day, lives are lost to breast cancer. We need more funding for metastatic breast cancer research, better treatments, and more time for those living with MBC.

💚 We remember.
🩷 We honor.
🩵 We fight for more.

Awareness is important. Action is essential. Every life matters.

10/13/2026

Chris Martin Needles
shares her story of LIVING with metastatic breast cancer for 19 years!

10/13/2026

At 41, on December 1, 2022, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Less than a month later, I learned I had Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in my breast, lymph nodes, and spine.

My cancer has since changed from ER/PR+, HER2- to triple-negative and small cell carcinoma. I’ve had a hysterectomy, lumpectomy, lost my hair twice, tried three IV chemotherapies, one oral chemotherapy, and immunotherapy that worked for less than one summer. I’ve lost count of my PET scans, have weekly bloodwork, and have scars from three ports. Today, my only active cancer is in my left rotator cuff area.

I have a team of oncologists and a calendar filled with appointments. But those things don’t tell my whole story.

I’m still here.

I’m still Raylan’s mom, TJ’s wife, a daughter, sister, friend, coach, and aunt. I still believe in God, science, and hope.

Cancer changes how you look at life, your relationships, your goals, and the way you see time with the people you love. So much of the conversation focuses on what cancer takes away. For me, what I’ve been able to experience matters more.

I’ve watched Raylan grow, celebrated his accomplishments, listened to his stories, and given hugs on hard days. TJ and I have built 21 years together, and when we promised “in sickness and in health,” we meant it. I’ve celebrated my parents’ 45th anniversary, sponsored my nieces’ and friends’ daughters’ faith journeys, watched our annual pig roast grow, traveled with loved ones, learned to make macarons, and continued volunteering.

I’ve also raised more than $15,000 for METAvivor over the past three years to support metastatic breast cancer research, advocacy, and clinical trials.

My life is not defined by scans, treatments, or scars. It’s defined by the people I love, the memories we make, the work I believe in, and the hope I continue to carry.

Cancer is part of my story, but it is not my whole story. And I’m still making memories, still showing up, and still living. 💗

10/12/2026

One evening, as I happily laid down with my daughter to sing to her and tell her stories before bed, laying flat on my back, I somehow brushed up against my breast in such a perfect way and angle, and I felt a lump.

“I feel a lump in my breast??” I texted my husband who was downstairs.

“Call your doctor first thing in the morning” he replied.

So I did. I called my p*p. He told me that since I got my Covid vaccine in March, it was probably a swollen lymph node and to give it some time to go down.

Given the location of the lump, this really didn’t make sense and I made the decision to advocate for myself.

On May 24th I called my gynecologist instead, who told me to come in immediately to be seen and was then referred to get a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound.

On May 26th I got a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound. I needed a biopsy for a suspicious mass.

On June 1st I went in for two biopsies. One on the suspicious mass, and one on a lymph node that appeared a bit large.

On June 7th I got the call. I have breast cancer. At 32 years old.

If there is anything I have learned along the way that might help someone else, it is this: You know your body best. Advocate for yourself relentlessly. If I had listened to that doctor and assumed it was from a vaccine, my story might be very different. Touch your body, know your baseline, and do not let anyone dismiss your intuition when it comes to your own life.

I was always anxious. As far back as I can remember I was always afraid of some sort of health crisis happening to me. This diagnosis was feeding my anxious brain a narrative like “see! You were right all along”

This was VERY difficult emotionally to handle in therapy. I am still working on this and probably always will.

Cancer has taught me how to love deeper, care more, talk about death, live in the moment and be the strongest person I ever knew I could be. Cancer changed me—in some ways for the worse, leaving me with scars, a broken trust in the future and a loss of innocence I can never get back—but overwhelmingly for the better. I no longer waste my energy on things that don't matter.

Cancer doesn't just attack your cells; it attacks your peace of mind. We talk a lot about saving lives, but we also need to talk about honoring the carefree versions of ourselves that we leave behind after diagnosis.

Breast cancer does not run in my family and it does not discriminate. It doesn’t care that I was a 32-year-old mother and wife with a family who needs me. What I wish people understood about being diagnosed young is the profound isolation that can come with it. You sit in waiting rooms grappling with a forced confrontation of your own mortality at a time when you are supposed to be building your future. You aren't thinking about retirement; you are terrified you won't get to see your daughter grow up. The idea that my daughter could be left without a mother made me physically ill. I cherish every moment with her, I refuse to miss anything important and I find myself a much more patient, understanding and silly, carefree mom. (Most of the time haha)

Here are quiet, heavy truths in this aftermath that we desperately need to talk about more. It is the isolating reality of suddenly feeling decades older than your peers, carrying a physical and mental weight they cannot yet comprehend. It is the profound betrayal by your own body, and the terrifying grief of losing any bit of control. And then, there is the permanent shadow of fear that follows you, no matter how high or bright the sun sits in the sky. The terror of recurrence is always just a single whisper away. No matter the occasion—whether you are feeling pure joy or sitting in quiet sorrow—it lingers in the back of your mind, an uninvited presence constantly offering terrible, unwanted advice that you can never quite tune out.

…..But now, 5 years later, I am learning to lower the volume of that whisper. I am learning that I can hold both the terror of recurrence and the absolute joy of a Monday night cheer practice coaching my daughters squad, a phone call to my mom on the way home from work, a Friday night making dinner with my husband and cuddling my 5 pets (2 dogs and 3 cats!) in the exact same heart. My body may have betrayed me, but it is also the very thing fighting to keep me here. The body that I once wished so desperately to change, to be smaller or stronger. That same body is home to my beautiful, kind soul, and I am learning to love and honor this home that I am so incredibly grateful for.

10/07/2026

My name is Caitlin.

I’m a 42-year-old mom to two beautiful girls, ages 17 and 14, and I’ve been married to my best friend, DuWayne, for 18 years.

Breast cancer runs in my family. After my older sister was diagnosed, I underwent genetic testing and learned that I carry the BRCA2 gene mutation. I was told I had an over 86% lifetime risk of developing breast cancer.

For two years, I chose close monitoring, alternating mammograms and MRIs every six months. Almost every test led to additional imaging or testing. The constant waiting and worrying became exhausting.

On August 24, 2023, I chose to have a preventative bilateral mastectomy.

I decided against reconstruction because of my allergies, my desire to avoid multiple surgeries, and because I wasn’t a candidate for a DIEP flap.

Ultimately, I chose to remain flat.

It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made.

My husband and daughters have carried me through some of my hardest days. My girls have been my biggest cheerleaders. I’ve never hidden my bad days from them. I want them to know that strength doesn’t mean never being sad or crying. Sometimes strength means feeling everything—and finding the courage to keep moving forward.

I’ve learned that it’s okay to grieve the body I once had. Some days I feel beautiful. Some days I don’t. Both are okay.

For a long time, I worried I had somehow let my husband down. But I realized that was my fear talking, not his reality. He has reminded me that I am so much more than my breasts. He would choose having me here, healthy and alive, over anything else.

I hope neither of my girls ever carries the BRCA2 mutation. But if one of them does, I hope she remembers this:

There is nothing wrong with choosing the path that allows you to live.

I am still a wife. I am still a mom. I am still me.

And yes—I am still beautiful.

I chose to remain flat. It was my choice. It allowed me to choose my health, my life, and my future.

I’m learning to love the woman I am now—scars and all.

10/07/2026

It is International Flat Day!

This is worth sharing again and again.

Bowles was instrumental in creating an international patients' rights organization that advocates for women that want aesthetic flat closure.

Read more here about the powerful work Kim has done.Not Putting on a Shirt

10/04/2026

It was 3 a.m., and I was four weeks postpartum, rocking my second son—10 lbs. 5 oz.—when I found a painful lump in my breast.

I knew mastitis or clogged duct were possibilities, but something felt wrong. A friend urged me to get a mammogram.

At my first appointment, my concerns were dismissed.

I was told the lump was a clogged duct, given antibiotics, and told that at 36, I was “too young” to need a mammogram.

I finished the antibiotics and went to my six-week postpartum appointment. My OB immediately ordered my first mammogram. After the mammogram, I needed a biopsy.

A few days later, I was trying to take a power nap before “night shift” with our newborn when the call came.

“Unfortunately, the lump was cancerous.”

The room spun.

Within 24 hours, my husband Alex and I were sitting with a surgeon. I was diagnosed with triple-negative, stage 2B breast cancer.

I was angry. Frustrated. Terrified. And wondering why I hadn’t pushed harder when I knew something was wrong.

But there was no time to grieve. I had a baby, another young son, and treatment to begin.

Six months of chemotherapy followed, including the “Red Devil” and Keytruda. I used a cooling cap and iced my hands and feet to try to prevent neuropathy. I learned quickly that treatment becomes cumulative.

The exhaustion was real.

My family and friends showed up in every possible way. Neighbors, friends, coworkers, my sisters, parents, in-laws—even people serving in the military from across the country. They drove me to chemo, brought meals, helped with my boys, and gave our family pieces of normalcy when everything felt anything but normal.

Cancer still stole things from me.

I missed my baby sister’s wedding. I didn’t watch her walk down the aisle or dance with her at her reception.
I cried angry, helpless tears as I prepared for chemo the next day.
There were hospitalizations, more chemo, and eventually a double mastectomy. I named my four drains because sometimes you have to find something to laugh about.
After surgery, more treatment followed. Then another surgery to finally complete my reconstruction.

Nearly three years later, I’m still rebuilding strength.

I can run without pain—whether it’s a workout or chasing my boys. My port is gone. My family and I are still healing.

And my mental health remains a priority.

I share my story because I want young women—especially those who are postpartum—to know this:

Breast cancer does not care how young you are.

And young women deserve to be taken seriously.

If something doesn’t feel right, keep asking questions.

Advocate for yourself. Push for answers.

You are not alone.

Take it one treatment, one day, one hour at a time.

And never quit.

10/03/2026

Knowledge is power. Too many young women are turned away when finding breast issues only to be diagnosed at later stages.
It’s important to understand the signs and know your own risk.