About

The Young Black Survivor's Inc. was established by the late Candice Nyan.  Mrs. Nyans purpose for the non profit organization is to save lives by providing breast cancer awareness, education, and support to young Black women through community initiatives, mental inspiration, and financial aid.  ​We are here to save young Black women from the awful disease called breast cancer.  Expect education, inspiration, fun, and support from this page.

 

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"In May of 2015, my ex-boyfriend noticed a lump in my right breast. He asked me what is was, and I said I didn’t know because I didn’t at the time. So he did some Googling, and breast cancer was one of the topics that popped up along with hormones. We both decided to go with hormones, because it seemed like the safest thing at the time.

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So time went on, and the lump did not disappear. I went to sleep every night hopeful that it would disappear because it was “just hormones” in my eyes. Sounds like denial right? I agree…I was in extreme denial. So one day I woke up and decided to move back home to Tulsa, Ok where my mom is. I left everything, my apartment, my furniture, my boyfriend, my job .etc.

I moved back in with my mom, and noticed that the lump continued to grow. I was hiding the lump from my mother because I was afraid. I didn’t want to know what it was. One day my mom hugged me, and felt the lump. She asked me what it was, I said I didn’t know. She made me go to the doctor immediately. Not going to the doctor wasn’t up for discussion, as I still begged and pleaded with her to not make me go. I had my first exam, and the doctor walked out of the room saying he didn’t know what it was.

 

 

So he recommended that I see I breast specialist, but first I had to have an ultrasound. We couldn’t see what we needed to see through the ultrasound, so I had a biopsy. The next day, the nurse navigator called me with my results (that was a pretty quick turnaround for biopsy results). She said I was positive for breast cancer, we didn’t know what stage yet.

Later we found that it was stage IV, and had spread to my lymph nodes, lungs, and liver. We received the results in October 2015. My family was devastated. I remember getting results from my breast specialist about how this breast cancer would affect my life, and my mom busting out of the room in tears because she couldn’t take the news. I remember my oldest brother crying, and I had never seen him cry.

 

 

 

My other brothers also kept me uplifted through words and actions. So the plan of care was aggressive chemotherapy because my breast specialist said that radiation and surgery would not help me live any longer at this point. So I did several rounds of chemo, and the tumor disappeared in my lungs, lymph nodes, and liver. It shrank from 14cm in my breast to 4cm. I also changed my diet, and ate more organic foods. I started to drink more water as well to keep my system flushed, and became more active.

 

 

So, I decided to have a lumpectomy to remove what was left of the tumor in my breast. The doctors also suggested radiation to decrease the chances of the cancer returning. However, the cancer returned to my lungs during radiation. I had to stop radiation, and start chemo again.