Back in 2020, Taylor Dillingham, then 26, started to notice sometimes her nipple looked inverted, so naturally, she Googled it. While the results said it could be a sign of breast cancer, she didn’t believe that such a diagnosis at her age was possible.
“I didn’t feel a lump. My nipple was just being weird, and it was only sometimes halfway inverted,” Dillingham, now 31, of Houston, tells TODAY.com. “(The internet) tells me I have cancer and I’m like, ‘There’s no way.’”
Two years passed, and she saw that her nipple sometimes bled. Then she felt a lump. Worried, she visited her doctor and learned she had Stage 3 breast cancer at only 28 years old.
“I was speechless,” she says. “I had just gotten a huge promotion. I just started dating somebody. My life was in a really, really good place, and I remember thinking, ‘What do you mean?’”
Nipple Changes Are Sign of Something Wrong
The first nipple changes Dillingham observed, back in 2020, were that they sometimes dipped inward. Believing she was too young for cancer, she didn’t seek medical attention right away. Two years later, she experienced more worrisome symptoms.
“I woke up and there was blood on my shirt that I was sleeping in from my nipple,” she says. “Then I felt like a lump.”
Still, “on the fence” about visiting a doctor, she spoke to her mom, who urged her to go. The doctor ordered an ultrasound.
The doctor said, “This is probably just fatty tissue, but there is definitely something there,” Dillingham recalls.
Her ultrasound led to a “rush mammogram” and a second ultrasound before she found herself in a consultation room.
“I looked at my mom and I was like, ‘Have you ever been put in a consultation room for good news?’” Dillingham says. “She was like, ‘No.’”
The doctor came in and told her she had breast cancer. When she visited MD Anderson Cancer Center for a second opinion, doctors also found a lump in her neck.
“They said, ‘I know we were originally here for one biopsy, but you’re going to need three and we’re going to start in your neck,’” she says.
A few days later, when Dillingham was in the grocery store, she learned that she had Stage 3 cancer.
“They tell me that my cancer is rapidly spreading, and I have to get started on chemo in two weeks,” she says.
Her cancer was hormone-receptor positive and HER2-negative, the most common type of breast cancer.
For five months, she underwent 16 rounds of the chemotherapy known as the “red devil,” doxorubicin.
“It was so strong that I was in and out of consciousness while getting the chemo,” Dillingham says. “I would come home, typically I would make it to the couch.”
Like many people undergoing chemotherapy, she experienced severe brain fog.
“What chemo does to your brain is hard to describe,” she says. “I was actively dumber for about a year and a half.”
Afterward, she underwent another chemotherapy weekly for three months. In April 2024, she underwent surgery. Dillingham participated in a clinical trial where doctors performed her double mastectomy and DIEP flap reconstruction at the same time. DIEP flap surgery uses a patient’s tissue, taken from the lower belly, to reconstruct their breasts, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
“When the surgeries are separate, you typically have to wait about a year, and then you have these spacers that you have to deflate and reflate every day,” she says. “It’s high risk for infection and then can damage your tissue.”
Still, seeing herself after surgery felt tough.
“Emotionally it was really hard,” she says. “I was standing in front of a mirror, and I saw my body for the first time, and I started sobbing because I was in a body I no longer recognized.”
Breast Cancer in Young People
Experts remain unsure why young people without a genetic risk factor, such as a BRCA mutation, develop breast cancer.
“We need to figure out why breast cancer is happening in these young patients,” Dr. David Ramirez, associate professor of breast medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, tells TODAY.com. “We need to try and figure out if there are (lifestyle or environment) factors, like (with) colon cancer.”
It’s important for young people to recognize what’s normal when it comes to their breasts, he says. If they notice any symptoms or changes, they should visit a doctor immediately.
Signs of breast cancer can include:
A lump or bump in the breast
Swollen lymph nodes in arm or neck that do not go away
An inverted nipple
Bloody discharge from nipple
Breast skin that looks dimpled or like an orange peel
“If you feel something, have it evaluated,” Ramirez says. “They may not be able to feel (a lump), but if they can see something that would also be a reason to go see a physician and be evaluated.”
Sometimes younger patients are diagnosed at later stages because they do not have early symptoms or undergo regular screening.
“It’s the mentality of youth. You get sick, you hurt yourself and you think, ‘I’m going to be OK. I’ve always been OK in the past. Everything gets better,’” Ramirez says. “Unfortunately, with cancer, it’s a symptom that doesn’t get better.”
He adds that Dillingham’s case was “pretty advanced. … She had a pretty large tumor in her breast, and she had extensive lymph nodes involved.”
Doctors designed a rigorous treatment plan to help Dillingham become cancer free.
“It’s a multidisciplinary approach for her,” Ramirez says. “We make (a plan) up front, and that way it kind of puts patients at ease.”
After surgery, Dillingham also underwent radiation five days a week for seven weeks before Ramirez put her on medications to suppress her hormones. She’ll need to take these drugs for 10 years and she’s in menopause because of it. And, she’s taking a targeted therapy hopefully to prevent the cancer from returning.
“Everything we’re doing is trying to decrease the changes of it coming back,” Ramirez says. “We know that these hormone positive cancers can come back even 10, 20 years later.”
‘Survivorship Is Pretty Intense’
While it’s been more than a year since doctors said that she is cancer-free, Dillingham has still faced other health challenges, such as terrible bone and joint paint from being in menopause. Also, she underwent surgery where doctors transplanted lymph nodes from her abdomen to her chest because her surgeon removed 35 lymph nodes during her original surgery.
“I essentially lost my entire lymphatic system on the left side of my body,” Dillingham says. “I developed lymphedema, so my arm is gigantic.”
The emotional aspect of being a cancer survivor feels tough at times.
“Everyone thinks that once treatments are over, that it’s over. And it’s just not,” she says. “Survivorship is pretty intense. I’ve heard it gets better, but in the first couple of years you’re still in the thick of it.”
In college, Dillingham played golf, but treatment and surgery have made it difficult for her to exercise.
“I’ve always been extremely healthy and active, and it was a huge part of who I was,” she says. “I am still trying to find a way to be active. It’s really hard.”
Dillingham wants to encourage others to pay attention to their bodies.
“Had I listened to my body and gone in the second that I found something slightly odd, I bet I would have caught this so much earlier and been in such a different place than I am now,” she says. “I like to share my story for people to stay on top of (their health).”