When Ph.D. student LaShae Rolle felt a pain in her chest, she didn’t think much of it at first.
A little soreness made sense: she was working hard in the gym, preparing to bench press nearly 300 pounds for a powerlifting competition.
The pain came and went, but then Rolle noticed a lump in her breast, a textbook warning sign of breast cancer. It was a red flag she was deeply familiar with from her own studies on cancer prevention and treatment.
At 26, Rolle never expected to live through it herself. She had no family history of the disease and no genetic risk factors.
Still, she took her symptoms seriously. She scheduled a check-up and mammogram for peace of mind. When the results came back, she and the medical technicians were shocked to discover it was cancer.
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