Metastatic breast cancer survivors share their experience with “grateful” followers of social media

Philecia La’Bounty’s first clue that something was wrong came one night in January 2018, while she was out on the movies with her boyfriend. She felt a marble sized lump near the bottom of her left chest. “Do I really feel this?”, She thought. “It wasn’t normal for me.”

The next day she discussed her concern with the doctors at Family Practice Office where she worked as an administrative assistant. Since she was not covered by the practice of health insurance and could not afford private insurance, they were responsible for a nearby government-assisted free program. “I didn’t feel sick, but I didn’t feel right,” she says.

La’Bounty requested a mammogram but was rejected – two. “You are 29, you are healthy and you have no family history with breast cancer,” she heard. “Come back if it bothers you.”

In June, the lump had grown dramatically and was visible through her clothes. In the next month, a series of tests revealed that La’Bounty, a part -time model based in Huntington Beach, Calif, had breast cancer in step 4 that had metastasized to her lungs, lymph nodes and sternum.

“It was one of the most traumatic weeks of my entire life. I didn’t want to die, says La’Bounty. “I was pointed and supported and affected and scanned and saw ten doctors in a week. Was my modeling career over? What would I look like? ”

What followed was an almost seven-year struggle with cancer that the 37-year-old is still fighting today. Two weeks after her diagnosis, she began 12 astonishing rounds with chemotherapy. “I felt that I was hit by a bus,” recalls La’ordy, who began to chronic on her journey on social media and quickly built a great following.

In October 2019, she was cancer -free and had four years of remission before being diagnosed with a second type of breast cancer in March 2023, a more aggressive type of breast cancer called HER2+. La’Bounty underwent a double mastectomy and another 12 rounds of chemotherapy – before a PET scan revealed that the cancer had again metastized to her lymph node.

Since then, a new, directed oral therapy has been shown to be effective, shrunk the tumor in her lymph node by 50 percent and kept her condition stable. “As long as we are stable or shrink, it’s good,” she says “Cancer has robbed me so much. I’m just ready to get back to the things I love.”

La’Bounty’s often posts that chronize her struggle with cancer has triggered an overwhelming response from her followers – more than 56,000 on Instagram and more than 110,000 on Tiktok. “Honestly, I’ve probably heard from over a million (women) over the past seven years,” says La’Bounty. “They are so grateful.”

“They are grateful that I taught them that they can fire doctors, they can ask for alternatives, go for other opinions, set boundaries with friends and family and manage the real good looking cancer – all the little things that no one mentions,” she says. “Because doctors’ jobs should keep us alive. But there is so much more (having cancer).”

La’Bounty’s honest posts have also inspired others to take their own health problems more seriously.

“Whether you realize it or not, your videos make a huge impact,” wrote a follower. “You pave the way for people to fight for tests to get a correct diagnosis instead of being postponed because you are not age for such a medical condition. You are the reason I started fighting for answers a year ago. ”

Another follower wrote for thanking La’ordy – who lost all the hair weeks after starting chemotherapy – for its openness about wearing wigs. “I personally want to thank you for being so open to your wigs,” wrote an Instagram follower. “I just bought one and tried it for the first time and cried at how fantastic it looks. I feel that I look like “myself” before breast cancer. ”

Recently, La’ordy was at work that Solar Panel Sales Associate when a gallbladder cancer survivor approached her on the street. “Hi, I know you,” the woman told La’Bounty. “’I am so blessed to meet you today. Thank you for everything you do and publish. You just give me so much hope. You show that you can have these cancers and still live a beautiful life. “”

La’Bounty shares vulnerable moments, for example when her cancer returned in 2023 and she started chemo again that summer. “Other people marry and have children and I have Kemo again,” she told her Tiktok followers. “It’s okay to have weak moments like this. If you have moments like this, you’re not alone. Not every day is about being a fighter, being strong. You are not weak to have these moments. “A follower comforted her by saying,“ Oh honey, you get to know what you feel. You are absolutely right. . . I’m so sorry. “Another commented:“ What can we do? How can we support you? Hang there. . . Sending love. ”

Although La’ordy continues to struggle with intermittent waves of nausea from the targeted therapy treatments, she has her attractions on the future and goes two miles every other day with her dogs, Cole and Canyon, and plans a family trip to Hawaii in May to celebrate his 38 anniversary.

“A massive goal for me this year is to come back to modeling,” says La’Bounty. “I pray to be signed by an agency and I start acting courses this spring. I really hope for a miracle that this drug gets rid of (cancer of the lymph gland), but if I have to live with cancer for the rest of my life it is good with me, as long as I am stable. I’m just trying to enjoy a normal, normal life. “