Ameilia Boodoosingh Gopie and her daughter, Allana Gopie.
Ameilia Boodoosingh Gopie and her 3-year-old daughter, Allana Gopie, can often be seen wearing matching outfits.
Ameilia Boodoosingh Gopie and her husband Allan Gopie hold their daughter Allana Gopie.
Kiki Roark-Adams and Charmella Roark are sisters who both battled breast cancer. "As a mom, you put your kids first," Kiki Roark-Adams said. "I had to put on a brave face."
Andrea Savage's son was 9 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. "My son was always worried and didn't want to be a burden," she said.
Charmella Roark's two children were young adults when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022. “It’s more than just ringing a bell,” Roark said. “It’s more than just wearing pink.”
Charmella Roark, 47, said the first person she called after getting her diagnosis was her sister.

The last thing Ameilia Boodoosingh Gopie remembers before blacking out on the delivery table is holding her daughter, Allana, for the first time.

She didn’t feel anything. No connection. No love.

“Who is this?” she remembers thinking about the baby. Then she bled out for 45 minutes.

The feeling of motherly love she had envisioned while pregnant didn’t come to her in the days that followed Allana’s birth and her own recovery, said Gopie, who lives in Florida. Weeks passed, and then months. Gopie, who was 39 when Allana was born in August 2022, spent eight months battling postpartum depression before she started to form a real connection with her daughter.

But just when she started to come into her own as a mom, her world fell apart. On Christmas Eve 2024, at 42, with a 2-year-old daughter to care for, Gopie was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Breast cancer rates are rising among young women. And women under 50 are nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed with any cancer compared with young men, according to the American Cancer Society. Though early detection and more treatment options have made it possible for breast cancer patients and survivors to live longer, healthier lives after being diagnosed, patients with mom duties told USA TODAY that juggling treatment and motherhood is nearly impossible.

After a round of chemotherapy, Gopie said, she felt paralyzed with pain. Allana was still sleeping in a crib at the time, and while her husband was at work Gopie said she heard her daughter’s cries.

She willed herself out of bed, onto the floor and crawled to Allana’s room. She coaxed Allana to climb out of her crib and make her way to Gopie, and then the two got into Gopie’s bed, where she called her husband to ask for help.

Her husband asked why she didn't call sooner. Gopie knew she should have. "But the mom in me needed to listen to my child. And she needed me."

Moms tend to put off caring for themselves

Mothers and caregivers tend to put their loved ones' health before their own. That's a problem when it comes to early cancer detection, said Dr. Arif Kamal, chief patient officer for the American Cancer Society.

He worries that because cancer is more commonly associated with people in their 60s and 70s, younger women might skip a mammogram appointment or put off a follow-up from a questionable mammogram result in the rush of running their kids to soccer and taking their parents to appointments. Quite simply, Kamal said, women in the sandwich generation aren't thinking they could have cancer.

And when they are diagnosed, young patients often don't think about what life will look like after cancer. For breast cancer, which has a 91% survival rate, that's an important thing to consider, Kamal said.

“We think about people getting cancer when they’re the most financially resilient, which would be later in life. But, you know, if we bankrupt you at 40, what’s the chance that you’re going to have an active 401(k) at 65?" Kamal said.

Young women with cancer might be in the middle of their careers or their most intense parenting years, adding to the stress of the diagnosis. Kamal worries about these patients' social life, financial wellness and fertility considerations if they want more children − all things he doesn't think about as much, or at all, with older patients.

Michelle Wessel, 52, was 39 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her daughter was in middle school. Wessel said she wasn't planning on having more children when her first treatment sterilized her. Years later, she wonders what life could have been like if she'd had a moment to think ahead.

"It would have been nice," Wessel said. "I would have loved to give her a sibling."

'I didn't want my kids to see me in distress'

Kiki Roark-Adams was 37 when she felt a lump in her right breast, accompanied by a radiating pain from her right armpit. She went to three doctors over five months that year, in 2018, before she was allowed a mammogram. She was diagnosed with breast cancer six days later.

"I don't know why I was being ignored," she said.

Roark-Adams has three kids, who were 16, 14 and 8 at the time she was diagnosed, and she was working full time. But after her double mastectomy, she said, she was "out of commission for six weeks. I couldn't even breathe, I was in so much pain." She hardly left her recliner those weeks, she said, and was "mothering from a chair."

"I didn't want my kids to see me in distress. You have to hide it from your kids," she said. "When they come in, you want to smile, you want to act like everything's normal, because they're babies, they're kids, and they shouldn't have to see their mom going through that at that young age."

Every mother and child is different. For Andrea Savage, who was 48 when she was diagnosed in 2023, the best way to move through treatment while parenting her then-9-year-old was to be honest with him about everything she went through.

"The approach that I took from the get-go was to be completely transparent and honest with him, because whatever he was assuming was probably going to be the worst-case scenario," Savage said.

She said her bond with her son became stronger through her cancer journey. But it was difficult at times.

"At the end of the day, even though you're going through chemo and you're feeling nauseous, you also have to have dinner on the table," Savage said. She said she sat down with her son to go over his homework each night, even while receiving cancer treatment.

'I want to be done with this'

For women with breast cancer, the struggle doesn't stop when the cancer goes away. Now, Savage said, she worries about a recurrence. And the estrogen blockers she's on launched "an abrupt menopause," which Kamal said is common among young breast cancer survivors. Roark-Adams said the medication she was on after cancer "did a number" on her, leading to bone density loss and hair loss.

"This is the part where it all starts to really drain on you, mentally," Savage said, noting she'll be on this medication for 10 years. "It's not just that first year of getting through active treatment that you have to prepare yourself for. You have to prepare yourself for the long haul."

Parenting during this phase is harder than parenting during chemotherapy, Savage said.

"People show up for you when you're in chemo. People show up for you when you're in radiation; they'll send the meals to your house," she said. "But then, their understanding is, you're done. You're back to normal ... but nothing is the same for you anymore."

Roark-Adams's older sister, Charmella Roark, was diagnosed with breast cancer four years after she was diagnosed. Roark's kids were young adults when she was diagnosed, and her daughter became her caregiver.

Now, her estrogen blockers give her severe joint pain, and she has dealt with anxiety because of the lingering complications of cancer.

"I want to be done with this," said Roark, 47. "No one talks about this."

It's important, Roark-Adams said, to advocate for yourself and your body. Doctors are touting the same message.

It's essential for patients to know their family history, Kamal said, including when their family members had cancer and what type it was. From there, patients can work with care providers to develop the best screening schedule.

"Even though you're busy with life, you need to take a step back and make sure you do your screening" and get your breast exams, said Dr. Stuart Samuels, a radiation oncologist with Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and one of Gopie's doctors. Moms need to take care of themselves, he said, "so that you can be there to take care of your family in the future."

Madeline Mitchell's role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.

Reach Madeline at memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_on X.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: These women thought motherhood was hard enough. Then they got cancer.

Reporting by Madeline Mitchell, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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