AYA In The News Again

Well, here we are again.

Another *fun* reminder that cancer doesn't care how young you are—or how unprepared pretty much anything is prepared is to deal with you. This latest piece from NYT highlights a spike in cancer diagnoses among younger women. Shocking? Not really. Infuriating? Always.

When we started the AYA cancer movement almost 20 years ago, it wasn't about getting trophies. It was about proving we even existed.

Back then, young adults with cancer weren't just overlooked—we were straight-up invisible. No programs. No standards of care. No research priorities. No clue. We only had a frenzied handful of pissed-off, upstart rapscallions with no roadmap, let alone Waze.

We had to build the playbook from scratch just to have age-appropriate programs, tools, services, and survivorship support that didn't treat us like toddlers or geriatrics. We weren't better or worse, we were simply different. And that mattered.

And while the foundation we built is here for today's "new freshman class" (welcome, by the way—welcome to the club, and your dorm room is on fire), the system still hasn't entirely caught up.

Yes, there are better programs now (shoutout to the relentless advocates who dragged the system kicking and screaming into the 21st century).

To today's survivors: It sucks to be here. We're pissed too. But you're not alone, and you're not the first to fight this fight. We've got your back. Take what we built and push it further. Demand better. Build louder.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/health/cancer-younger-women.html?smid=em-share