My Story: How I was diagnosed
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT | Amelia O’ Relly: “So my name is Amelia O’Relly and I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2019. It was a complete shock for me because I've always been a very healthy person.
I grew up in a healthy household.
We are Cuban by heritage and so we've always had really healthy habits. My family and I. And I was completely surprised by the diagnosis.
It was already stage four by the time it was diagnosed, which was a further surprise for me because just the prior year I had received a clean, a clean result in my in all of my screenings. And I've done them every single year.
And so that really began my journey from 2019 until today and it has been a really…I would say…uphill battle at many times, but also has led to some really good things and some terrific opportunities for me.
The diagnosis came as a complete shock for me when my doctor confirmed it. I think everybody that gets diagnosed remembers the exact date when their diagnosis was. For me that was May the 10th, 2019 — was the exact date when it was confirmed.
When I went for my appointment to get that confirmation, my partner was with me. He and I had been together for almost 12 years. And my sister was with me. And so they really became that core group initially to get me through — especially those first few days of processing what I even heard.
I actually took a little bit longer to tell the rest of my family. Most of my family is still in Cuba, but my immediate family is is here in the United States. My parents…it took me a while to be able to share that with them, partly because they're older. They had some health issues and I was always weighing what this news would do to them. I didn't want to do anything to harm them, obviously. And so I I had a very close group around me with whom I shared the news and that really has been the group that has sustained me through all the ups and downs of the last almost three years since I originally heard the news.”