In July 2012, photographer Amelia Coffaro was living in New York when she found a lump in her breast. At first, she thought it was exhaustion and back pain from life in the city, but unsure what to make of it, she decided to fly home to Milwaukee to see her family doctor.
"Despite the lump and other symptoms I shared with my doctor, and despite the fact that I said I felt something wasn't right, she reassured me the lump was 'nothing' because I was only 27 and it did not feel suspicious to her," Amelia says.
Amelia was given a piece of paper with head and neck exercises (to work out any possible swelling that could account for the mass) and told to return in eight weeks if pain in her back persisted. Some months went by, and Amelia's health worsened. "All I wanted to do was sleep; my bras no longer fit, and my chest appeared sunburned," she recalls.
So, in February 2013, she went back to her family doctor. "I was hesitant to see her," Amelia says, "in part because I was uninsured and worried about medical bills, but my body was begging me to listen." Amelia recalls her doctor's eyes filling with tears during the exam. "She said, 'This is either a very bad breast infection or you have inflammatory breast cancer.'"
Amelia was sent for an emergency mammogram, biopsy, and ultrasound. When she looked at the films from her mammogram, she saw two tumors, each mirroring one another to form a heart shape. Eight days later, on Valentine's Day, Amelia began chemotherapy.
I met Amelia four years ago through the photo community, and when her treatment began, she and I started to photograph her Walk Through Cancer, as this series has come to be called, in an attempt to offer insight on what it's like to face this disease at a young age. "The most common discussion I have with other young adults about the challenges of living through an illness is that the topic of young adult cancer is not widely discussed," Amelia says. "In the medical community, it can be very challenging to advocate for yourself based on intuition, although it seems that this growing community of affected young women are beginning to change the discussion on what the face of cancer looks like and how to diagnose and treat it accurately based on their individual needs."
Amelia and I paired the photos side-by-side — one from me next to one from her to document the illness from both her perspective and an outsider's perspective. "I am able to see so much beauty in the moments captured by a friend's camera when perhaps things didn't always feel particularly beautiful, especially when I needed to put my own camera down and just be," she says. "It has always been so interesting and humbling to me how the photos [that] were each taken at completely different times along the way have ended up reflecting bits and pieces of one another."
Today, there is no evidence of disease in Amelia's body. She is currently dedicating her time to developing a new wellness initiative for disease prevention and management, and teaches yoga and mindfulness as complementary and preventative therapy for those in cancer treatment and recovery.
Amelia will celebrate her 30th birthday this month.
Left: Amelia's first mammogram, displaying her tumors; Right: Amelia in her hospital room on the morning of her double mastectomy.
Left: 1,000 mg of vitamin C; Right: Amelia's chemotherapy port.
Left: Amelia's hair and hairbrush; Right: Amelia flipping her custom-made wig, affectionately known as Beyoncé.
Left: Amelia applying her favorite red lipstick before chemotherapy; Right: Amelia being fitted for her wig.
; Left: Amelia's head with her remaining hair; Right: Case MS-13-1697 A. Left breast mass core biopsy specimen (seen through a microscope).
Left: Post-chemotherapy, receiving a saline flush; Right: Lemonheads spilled on the floor of Amelia's doctor's office.
Left: Amelia's hair on the floor of a salon; Right: Amelia drawing magnetized hair onto a Wooly Willy toy.
Left: A self-portrait drawn by Amelia; Right: Band-Aids covering Neupogen injection sites on Amelia's stomach.
Left: Lake Michigan seen from Amelia's flight to Wisconsin, just prior to her cancer diagnosis; Right: Amelia looking out over Lake Michigan from her hospital, the day after her mastectomy.
Left: Amelia's arm with an intravenous line; Right: Anna Coffaro, Amelia's youngest sister, touches Amelia's arm following chemotherapy.
Left: Amelia, before using mouthwash to treat thrush caused by chemotherapy; Right: Amelia's mouthwash.
Left: Amy Coffaro, Amelia's mother, sits at Amelia's bedside; Right: Amelia's pillow.
Left: Amelia photographs her sister, Anna; Right: Stephanie Coffaro, Amelia's sister.
Left: Amelia looking up from her pillow; Right: Amelia's sister, Anna.
Left: Tony Coffaro, Amelia's father, wipes tears from his eyes the morning of Amelia's surgery; Right: Inside Amelia's bedroom.
Left: A jar in Amelia's room containing notes on what she is grateful for; Right: Amelia's good luck charms.
Left: Melting snowflakes on eyelashes; Right: Amelia smiles and cries just before her surgery.
Left: Sunlight on Amelia's face, filtered through a sunhat; Right: A surgeon standing in front of an operating room light during Amelia's mastectomy surgery.
Left: A violinist in the Cancer Center at Columbia St. Mary's Hospital; Right: Surgical instruments used in Amelia's double mastectomy surgery.
Left: Bloodied gauze from Amelia's mastectomy in a hospital receptacle; Right: An eggshell found by Amelia on her first trip back to Brooklyn since being diagnosed.
Left: A cloud outside Amelia's bedroom window; Right: The feet of Amelia's family standing by her bed in her recovery room, just after she was waking up from her mastectomy.
Left and right: Amelia's bras hanging in her bedroom.
Left: A vile of Amelia's blood; Right: Amelia resting on the sofa as her sister Stephanie arrives at their family home.
Left: A set of false eyelashes Amelia wore (after her own lashes fell out following chemo); Right: Amelia blowing on a dandelion during an outing in Milwaukee, post-surgery
Left: Items on Amelia's bedroom dresser; Right: Amelia wearing a headscarf.
Left: Amelia's sister, Anna, standing on the lakefront in Milwaukee (one week after Amelia's treatment finished); Right: Amelia in the ocean in Martha's Vineyard.
Left: Amelia at the beach in Martha's Vineyard; Right: Amelia in her bedroom in Milwaukee.
Left: Curls on the ground following Amelia's first haircut after her hair had grown back; Right: Hair in a shower drain in Amelia's bathroom.
Left: Amelia through a lens blurred by sea spray in Martha's Vineyard; Right: Amelia on her yoga mat.
Left: Amelia in Brooklyn toward the end of her treatment; Right: A recent self-portrait of Amelia's.
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