Courtesy of Miranda McKeon
- A teenager who starred in a hit Netflix show was diagnosed with breast cancer in college.
- A side effect of her treatment was early menopause, and she shared the same symptoms as her mom.
- She's cancer-free but still managing the side effects, like brain fog and hot flashes, five years later.
Miranda McKeon had just finished her first year of college and was home for summer vacation when she first noticed something was wrong.
"I felt a lump on my right breast, which was definitely not there before. That immediately put a pit in my stomach," she told Business Insider.
It was her only symptom. She otherwise felt fine, eager to move ahead with plans to major in communications and build on her early acting career, which included a role in the hit Netflix show "Anne with an E."
To be safe, McKeon booked the earliest available doctor's appointment, about a week later. Tests came back positive for breast cancer: stage three, hormone positive, invasive ductal carcinoma.
It's the most common type of breast cancer, but it's typically diagnosed in women who are 55 or older.
"None of the doctors I was being treated by had ever seen anyone come in at my age. My diagnosis was literally one in a million," McKeon said.
That was in 2021. Five years later, McKeon is dealing with the lingering effects of the diagnosis, including early menopause as a result of her treatment.
She's 24, about half the age when menopause symptoms typically start, and commiserating over hot flashes and night sweats with her mom.
"I think it's so surreal in all of the ways no one in their life ever expects to be in that position," she said.
She also faces a tough decision: whether to keep taking the hormone-suppressing drugs for up to five more years to reduce the risk of cancer, and how to manage menopause symptoms while grappling with her future as a young adult.
Chemo in college
After her diagnosis, McKeon had to make quick decisions about her future.
While her peers were stressing about exams, campus parties, and dates, she faced major treatments: an expensive IVF procedure to preserve her ability to have children, then multiple rounds of chemotherapy, surgeries, and radiation.
Rather than postponing her studies at the University of Southern California, she worked to stay on track by taking a slightly lighter courseload during treatment.
The symptoms, difficult for any patient, were particularly agonizing for a college student. McKeon said losing her hair felt like a nightmare, and she struggled to justify resting and taking care of herself while watching her peers' busy social schedules.
"I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, and all of those uncertainties — feeling like an adult, but not quite yet feeling like an adult — are mirrored and amplified by this medical setting," she said.
Managing menopause symptoms as a 20-something
Like many young cancer patients, McKeon also struggled to cope with care and community support designed for much older people. Most of the patients around her were in their 30s at the earliest.
Then she found an unlikely peer: her mother.
As part of her treatment, McKeon underwent medically induced menopause that triggered her estrogen levels to drop dramatically, part of the strategy to fight cancer cells fueled by the hormone.
As a result, she started feeling hot flashes, brain fog, insomnia, and night sweats.
At the same time, her mom, Jill, was experiencing the same symptoms.
McKeon said it was a double-edged sword. While the pair share a close bond, not even camaraderie could change the fact that it felt so unnatural at her age.
For instance, McKeon would complain about having a hot flash, and her mom would chime in to say she was having one, too.
"There's nothing more humbling," she said. "I was like, 'Mom, enough. I don't want to relate to you going through this.' I think she's also a little bit heartbroken that I'm going through the same thing as her."
Finding meaning as a cancer survivor
McKeon said she's still working to make sense of her cancer journey and the lingering health effects, but she's found comfort in helping others and sharing on social media. Originally from New Jersey, she's now based in New York City, working on projects like her women's health podcast Pink 365, which discusses issues such as fertility, hormones, cancer, and more.
Sebastian Reuter/Getty Images for Clarins USA
She said she receives messages multiple times a day from people all around the world wanting her advice on different types of cancer.
McKeon does her best to help without becoming a personal hotline, and said her priority now is finding ways to use her platform for the greater good, partnering with organizations like women's health startup BeSound, which offers ultrasound screening for breast cancer.
At the same time, she doesn't want to erase the painful parts of her experience, the sense of losing a piece of herself, a version of her future uninterupted by cancer.
"Sometimes the easiest way to move through things is to just sit in it for a little bit and let it really feel awful instead of trying to make the best of it," McKeon said. "Sometimes you just have to allow yourself to grieve, as uncomfortable as that is."