Anne With An E‘s Miranda McKeon is sharing details about her breast cancer diagnosis and all that comes with it, including the decision to freeze her eggs at the age of 19.
The college student and actress who revealed she had cancer to her Instagram followers last month and has been documenting her journey in a blog to keep her loved ones and fans informed, has told People that she was in the bathroom of a beach house with her friends when she first felt a lump.
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“I had the thought that, Wow, this is the moment. I immediately went to the worst-case scenario. This is the moment where everything changes and there’s no going back. But after going down a little Google rabbit hole, my mind was at ease because I didn’t think anything could be wrong because of my age.”
Miranda thought she’d be ok because there’s a one-in-a-million chance of a 19-year-old getting breast cancer, but as it turned out, Miranda was that one.
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She also tells the publication that while her cancer is considered stage 3 because it has spread to her lymph nodes, her age and her overall health is in fact working in her favour.
“”My doctor was like, ‘Your stage doesn’t define you. And your cancer is your cancer.’ Which I appreciate because when you hear someone’s stage, your mind goes straight to one place or another and I don’t think that’s necessarily representative of what I’m going through.”
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Miranda adds that it was “gutting” having to make the decision to freeze her eggs, something she has covered in her personal blog posts:
“At my initial consultation about two weeks ago, my doctor mentioned to my family that ‘we need to start discussing family planning options’ to which my mom replied, ‘yes but that’s much further down the line…right?’ Well, everything regarding treatment is moving much faster than I ever could have expected….I’ve learned that there will never be a right time for any of this.”
She has since begun the egg freezing process, along with a first round of chemotherapy and has been very open and specific about everything – the good days and the hard days – in both her blog and on Insta.
“I’m hoping that by documenting a good majority of this, that someone else will be able to read it down the line when they need it and they can find comfort and healing through it in the way that I do writing it,” Miranda tells People.
You can read more about Miranda’s experience at MirandaMcKeon.com
(Feature Image Credit: @miranda.mckeon/Instagram)