About Maxine:
Breast Cancer Survivor

A story of strength, vulnerability, and hope.

October 1, 2025

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We're kicking off Breast Cancer Awareness Month with an interview with 27-year-old Maxine, a breast cancer survivor. We had the opportunity to sit down with her and hear firsthand about her experience. Keep reading to discover more about Maxine and her inspiring journey.

Q&A With Maxine

Hi, Maxine. Thank you so much for coming in today and telling us a little bit more about your experiences over the last year. I would love to kick this off with a little introduction about you.

Hi, I'm Maxine. I'm 27 years old and I'm a breast cancer survivor. I'm originally from Miami, Florida, and I moved to New York in 2018 to study graphic design. And I've been working since then as a designer.

So I know that the last year has been a journey for you. Could you tell us a little bit about when you may have first felt like something was off and what the diagnosis process was like for you.

Yeah, so around spring of last year, of 2024, I noticed something was off about my body on the left side specifically. And it was small. So at first, I didn't think anything of it really. I was kind of just waiting for it to go back to normal. But obviously, it didn't. And a lot of people around me were kind of enforcing that thought that I was having of like, oh, it's nothing. It's fine. Don't worry about it. It'll go away. Don't be catastrophic, don't be extreme. But I just knew something was different and off. And I'm glad that I trusted myself and went to a doctor and got all the tests done and got diagnosed fairly quickly compared to how a lot of people have to wait and are just in the mystery period of not knowing what's wrong with them for a while. My process was pretty quick.

And even then, at the beginning of the diagnosis process, you were starting in stage two. And by the end of it, you were at the cusp of stage three.

Yeah. In like one month. Which is horrifying to think of people who have to wait months for testing. Your cancer can go from something curable to something deadly so quickly. So I'm very grateful and lucky that mine was still in the beginning, and at least it was two to three and not three to four. I still had to get chemo and surgery and radiation, and all of that.

How long was the process for you regarding your treatment path?

I started treatment about a month after I received my diagnosis. And I'm lucky to be able to say that a lot of people have to wait constantly, being shut down by doctors saying, ’We're full. We don't have time or space for you right now.’ And my parents were really helpful with getting me appointments. I started chemo last year in July, and I did that for four months.

I had to get surgery, a double mastectomy - then I got reconstruction, and then I had radiation for two months. And now I'm on medication that I'm going to be on for five years.

So it's a long, drawn-out process. Even technically, you're still in the process of recovery.

For sure. Yeah.

In the last year, you've gone through chemo, a double mastectomy, and radiation. That sounds like such a difficult circumstance to get through without the support of friends and family and a real system of people to lean on. Can you speak to what people can do to be a better support system for somebody with this kind of diagnosis?

I am the luckiest person in the world. I have the best friends in the entire world. And throughout this whole journey, I was thinking about people who don't have that same kind of support system and just thinking about how horrible it must be for them and how challenging it is to not have a support system and people just to talk about it with, like talk about what you're going through, whether it's the painful aspect of it or just someone to distract you from what's happening and how shitty you feel.

I'd say in terms of showing up for somebody who's going through this, I can only speak for me. And I think we were all, my whole circle, really able to stay positive because I was in a lighter, lesser stage, stage two or stage three, so there was a little bit more hope of me coming out the other side. But definitely acknowledging that this person is going through something horrible and also acknowledging that it's okay to laugh about things because laughter helps every situation.

So I'm sure you know, as a survivor, there are quite a few breast cancer awareness organizations, and they offer quite a range of support. But the Pink Fund is specific in its mission towards helping people who are actively in treatment. I'd love to touch a little bit more on why an organization like that is so important today, because the astronomical cost of treatment itself, the mental toll.

I think a lot of these cancer organizations are putting money towards research and medical research and technology in that department. And that's all super important, but it's not really affecting the person who is getting the treatment in real time. It's more so something that takes years and years of development and is helping the greater cause, but the people that are going through it right now are suffering and going through horrible things, whether it's loss of their job or loss of any sort of consistent income that they had before and can't keep now that they're going through treatment.

The Pink Fund is so important because it's helping those people keep their lives in the same stable place that it was before this diagnosis, as if this diagnosis wasn't enough to unravel it completely.

It's so important to be able to support people that don't have the means of keeping their job at this time and taking care of their families and just keeping a sense of normalcy while they're going through this really scary thing.

What would you wish you could tell people about this experience? What do you wish more people knew about how breast cancer can affect non-physical aspects of life?

It’s a very layered question. I think as a woman, I could only speak from my perspective. It's something that is scary to experience and something that you're not sure is going to come back or if it's something that just happened once and you're lucky and it's not something that is going to come back somewhere else.

Before this, I had very long red hair and now it's growing back a different color. So that's a huge thing I have to adjust to and kind of understand what that means for me going forward because I never imagined I would have to not have my hair color.

And same with my body. My body is different. My reconstructed breasts are not what my natural ones were. And I'm only 27. So it's a huge adjustment when it comes to thinking about what makes you confident, thinking about what makes you feel valuable.

It's definitely something I'm still processing because it's only been a year. I feel like now my sense of confidence comes from things that aren't so physical.

What are some examples of where this confidence and strength stems from for you now?

My ability to be grateful, like practicing gratitude and appreciating what I have because that in itself can give you confidence, being supported, feeling loved, feeling like you have a support system and you are important to people and you make people feel important.

That is something that I will always try to strive for and be confident about and how I will move forward through life and just try to hold myself to a standard of making people feel good about themselves.

What are some of the things that you would love to take a stab at with this second wind that you feel in your life?

I definitely think I’m caring less about my physical appearance. Just being confident in the person that I am and not necessarily what people see right off the bat.

I would like to think that I was not a superficial person before this. And I don't think that I was, but I definitely clocked that I put a lot of value in things that I could see with my eyes and not necessarily giving myself as much value because of who I am.

Being scared if you're not knowing if you're going to be alive the next year, gives you a lot of gratitude and kind of puts you in check when it comes to what's important and how you want to show up for people and yourself.

Thank you so much for coming in and speaking to us here at Vibe about what this last year has been for you and your experience with surviving breast cancer.

Thank you for having me. I've never done something like this, and I feel special and privileged to be here and to be a part of something that is giving back 100% to the Pink Fund for people going through treatment currently who need financial help. I think that's so important and something I was thinking about throughout my whole journey, so thank you for having me!

Shop the Pink Ribbon Collection &
Give Back to the Pink Fund

The Pink Ribbon Collection. Wear the Ribbon. Share the Hope.

Introducing the Pink Ribbon Collection, available exclusively online, and designed in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Handcrafted in sterling silver with a high shine rodium finish, this limited collection includes a bracelet, pendant, ring, and stud earrings featuring pink zircon cabochons set in interwoven awareness ribbons. From now through the end of October, 100% of proceeds from these pieces will be donated to the Pink Fund, a nonprofit founded in 2006 by breast cancer survivor Molly MacDonald and her husband to provide real-life relief for patients in active treatment. Unlike organizations focused on research or medical expenses, the Pink Fund helps cover essential non-medical bills like housing, transportation, and utilities, easing financial stress so patients can focus on healing. To learn more about this incredible organization and its impact, check out our full blog post.