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In March, 27-year-old Alanna Vizzoni learned she had breast cancer. Her day-to-day life in Hoboken, New Jersey, immediately shifted from focusing on her work at a fashion startup and planning summer travel to scheduling surgeries and freezing her eggs. Now, Vizzoni is chronicling her experience on TikTok to share information about early signs with other young people. Here’s her story, as told to writer Alexis Berger.
My breast cancer story began in November 2023, but if it weren’t for my boyfriend Mike’s persistence, who knows how long I would have waited to get checked. I’m 27 years old, and I never thought to do a breast self-exam. But when Mike found a lump the size, shape, and squishy texture of a blueberry in my left boob, he implored me to see a doctor immediately.
I was nowhere near as freaked out. Even after I felt the lump and confirmed my other boob contained no such blueberry, I couldn’t believe a painless little marble under my skin might indicate anything seriously wrong. My first stop was Google, which told me my blueberry might be hormonal or related to my period. I also knew that my mom has fibroadenomas (noncancerous breast lumps)—she even calls herself “lumpy.” I figured it made sense that I’d be lumpy too, especially since fibroadenomas are most common in people my age, and family history means I’m more likely to have them. Cancer, on the other hand, made no sense to me at all.
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Nevertheless, Mike was in my ear constantly for the next two weeks, asking me to just see a doctor to make sure. To placate him, I made an appointment for a breast exam the day before Thanksgiving. My ob-gyn thought the same thing I did: Based on the lump’s rubbery texture, my lack of pain, and my mom’s fibroadenomas, she said it was probably a benign fibroadenoma. She gave me an ultrasound prescription, but based on the exam, she wasn’t concerned, so I wasn’t either. She suggested I get checked out at my leisure—perhaps after the holidays.
For the remainder of 2023, I went about my life normally. But by mid-January, the lump had become bigger and firmer—similar to a grape in its size and feel. I still hadn’t experienced pain, redness, nipple discharge, or itchiness—common early breast cancer symptoms—but changes in a breast lump’s shape and texture are cause for alarm too. All at once, the lump was on my mind around the clock. I got an ultrasound appointment for the week of Valentine’s Day. The radiologist found the lump suspicious, so I got it biopsied. On March 1, I got the worst call of my life. My radiologist informed me I had a cancerous tumor.
What was especially traumatic about it was that the call came at the very end of a Friday. I don’t remember exactly what was said, but all I took away was, “You have cancer. We’ll be in touch next week,” without any other context. I went through that whole weekend convinced I was dying. The first night, my parents and brother rushed over to the apartment Mike and I share, and we all grieved my diagnosis over multiple bottles of wine. My childhood best friend, Becca, came too. Coincidentally, Becca is recovering from a preventative double mastectomy after learning she has BRCA gene mutations, which are associated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Mike’s mother was also about to start radiation for stage 0 breast cancer. I felt like I’d been admitted to a club I never wanted to join, right alongside two women who mean so much to me.
Still, I believed they’d be fine: They had information. I was in the dark, and terrified. Without a full diagnosis, I assumed the worst-case scenario—that I would walk into my first appointment and be told I had a few months to live. That weekend, I walked along the Hoboken waterfront, looking at the New York City skyline and thinking, “It’s been a good life.”
On Monday, a nurse navigator called with an action plan, which made me feel way better. She booked me an appointment with a nearby hospital’s chief of breast surgery, M. Michele Blackwood, MD, for the following day. When I got there, Dr. Blackwood informed me I have stage II invasive ductal carcinoma…and that, eventually, I’ll be fine.
I immediately knew I wanted a double mastectomy to protect me from recurrent cancer, but the first step was a lumpectomy, a less invasive procedure removing the cancerous tissue and a few of my lymph nodes. A mammogram and MRI indicated that my lymph nodes were clear of cancer, but my doctors wanted to confirm that through surgery to help guide my treatment. If my lymph nodes were cancer-free, I’d be cleared to skip chemotherapy.
I had my lumpectomy on March 14, and it was technically a success. I say “technically” because my oncologist and breast surgeon say I’m cancer-free, but I don’t feel like I’m out of the woods. Because my sentinel lymph node actually did have cancer cells that my MRI and mammogram didn’t detect, and because I’m so young, my doctors want to overtreat me to protect me against future recurrence. So I’m going to do eight rounds of chemo over 16 weeks, with the goal of basically flushing my body of cancer.
Even though it’s a preventative measure, learning I’d have chemo opened me up to the same wave of emotions I felt when I was diagnosed: fear, sadness, and grief. At this point, it also really hit me that I was sick. The idea of losing my hair, which I love so much, and fully submitting to a traditional cancer treatment was overwhelming. The physical part has been a lot to process too—and easy to resent. I loved my body before. Now, the lumpectomy incisions that I’m healing from are intense. I can't lift my arms over my head without risking opening them, and it’ll take about six weeks before I can resume normal activities like exercising.
I truly believe I’ll be okay—but I want to feel like I did a month ago. I was going to go to Italy this summer (and possibly getting engaged there). I was focused on my family, friends, and my job. Now, I’m on leave from work, I’m definitely not planning any travel, and my other exciting life plans are on pause. But I’m working to preserve my lifespan and health—and making moves so I can do all of those things when the time is right. In the short few weeks since I’ve started my recovery, I’ve come around to the fact that this is something I just have to get through.
As I heal, I’m also going through the egg freezing process. My doctors recommended this because chemo and the hormone suppression therapy I’ll undergo afterwards will send my body into a kind of temporary menopause. It’s unpredictable how long “temporary” really means, so freezing my eggs is an insurance plan. At first, this made me feel so, so sad—I assumed it meant bad news for my fertility prospects. I now know that cancer treatment puts a delay—not a cease and desist—on my ability to conceive, which younger people are often able to do later on.
My insurance doesn't cover egg freezing—even for cancer patients. I applied for grants and am paying $4,000 out of pocket—much less than the full amount many people pay. But it’s frustrating, because I wouldn’t have undergone this procedure if I didn’t have cancer. I anticipate feeling comforted by knowing I’ll have an easier time creating a family down the line, but for now, the process is daunting and emotional. I feel lucky that egg freezing isn’t affecting my relationship with Mike, even though it’s a deviation from what we thought our plan would look like; he’s my voice of reason about seeing this process as a good thing for our future. In the scope of my treatment plan, it’s being treated like a quick little hurdle I have to get over so we can proceed. It’s hard to process.
I start chemo once I finish freezing my eggs, and in September, I’ll have three weeks of radiation, and a mastectomy and reconstruction thereafter. The timeline isn’t fully set—each step forward depends on how the one before it goes. I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more about myself as it all unfolds. What I already know for sure is that I’ll never downplay anything about my health again—no feeling, no symptom, nothing. Now, I hope people reading this understand that age is just one factor in your health. You should take any changes in your body seriously and get them checked out. Early detection is everything—not just with cancer, but so many other conditions too.
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