Tag Archives: victoria saint martin

The Debate Over Reconstruction

USA Today, March 16, 2014
Vickie offered her perspective about the benefits of reconstruction in a recent article in USA Today.

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Meeting My Survivor Siblings

Victoria St. Martin at the 2013 OMG Stupid Cancer Summit

Whenever I meet other young women with breast cancer, I’m sad and happy at the same time.

I hate knowing they had to experience this horrible disease but I’m happy it brought us together as sisters.

That feeling was magnified by the hundreds this past weekend at OMG! Cancer Summit for Young Adults in Las Vegas, where around 450 young cancer survivors and supporters networked and discussed, cried and laughed. We learned about how cancer treatments leave us all with lasting effects and how the doctors who care for us try to balance that with the quality of life concerns for people who haven’t had a mid-life crisis yet.
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Stronger

Victoria St. MartinTwo years ago today, life, as I knew it, changed forever.

“There’s ductal carcinoma in your left breast,” was first thing the doctor said.

The next words that came out of her mouth were: “It’s breast cancer.”

She said it, I know now, to eliminate any confusion, to clarify the meaning of that scary, clinical word “carcinoma,” to make sure that I didn’t have any doubt about the challenge that lay before me. But at the time the words felt harsh, cold, and hollow – like someone was doing their best to break my heart.

I was 30 years old.

And I just been diagnosed with a disease that nearly everyone told me I was too young to have.

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Raising Awareness

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Victoria St. Martin featured on realbeauty.com
Breast Cancer Awareness Month has gotten off to a fast start for Vickie, who’s featured in two online profiles of women who have been diagnosed with the disease.

The Young Survival Coalition began a month-long series of daily profiles of women on its Web site with Vickie’s story.

Vickie is also featured as part of a series on realbeauty.com.

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Welcome!

Welcome to Breast Cancer At 30, an online resource about breast cancer and how it affects young women. The site was created by Victoria St. Martin, a journalist who learned of her breast cancer diagnosis in February 2011, just a few months after her 30th birthday. At an age when many women are planning weddings and preparing for the arrivals of newborns, Vickie was selecting a surgeon to perform a double-mastectomy and making arrangements to freeze her eggs in an attempt to perserve her fertility despite the ravages of chemotherapy.

This site was created to provide information for other breast cancer survivors as they deal with the distinct challenges facing those who are diagnosed with the disease in their 30’s and earlier.

Read Vickie’s own account of her journey – and her advice for other young survivors.

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