October tends to be a busy month for USC students. Annenberg student Miranda Mckeon has been juggling game days and midterms just like the rest of us. But she is also handling something no college student ever expects to deal with: a battle with stage 3 breast cancer.
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When Miranda McKeon finished her freshman year of Zoom classes at USC, she thought her sophomore year would finally be a chance to receive that normal college experience she had always wanted. But instead, things turned upside down.
My name is Miranda. I was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer over the summer, and I’m currently in treatment and have surgery coming up.
This might be the first time you’ve ever heard of a teenager getting diagnosed with breast cancer, and that’s because, according to the American Cancer Society, the odds of a teenage girl ages 15 to 19, getting it is literally one in a million.
I was at my beach house with a bunch of my friends, and I went into the bathroom and was like readjusting my top. And so I brushed across a lump, which I hadn’t felt before. [00:00:45][9.4]
Miranda immediately began searching on Google.
I went down a rabbit hole and I was like, No, I’m so fine.
But she went ahead and set up an appointment with her primary care doctor anyway, and a few days later, she got a call, and it was not really the call she wanted to get. That was when her breast cancer journey began.
Journey... I kind of hate the word, but honestly, it makes so much sense. I have received six chemotherapy treatments and I have two more to go. I have surgery coming up in November and then after surgery, I will receive. Honestly, I don’t even know how many rounds of radiation, but probably like 20 something. I have reconstructive surgery like eight months after that.
Miranda has been very open about her cancer diagnosis on social media.
I had had an Instagram following because of the acting work I had done in high school.
[clip from Anne with an E]
That was Miranda as Josie Pye on Anne with an E, the Netflix adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, the show she had worked on up until heading to USC. She came into this with already several hundred thousand Instagram followers, and since sharing her journey, she has reached one million followers.
Can’t really hide that you’re going through something, you know, like 90% of my hair has fallen out, and I’m pretty sure my eyelashes and eyebrows are going to go any day now. I don’t know how long or how well I could hide that I’m going through something like this.
She was nervous to break such big news to all her followers.
The initial reaction was just like an overwhelming outpour of love and support.
What you just heard was one of the many pink parties her friends and family have thrown to support her throughout this process. The celebrating in social media posts is a positive side effect of her situation, but the less glamorous part has been her chemo treatments that have become very routine.
I’ll wake up, put on a fabulous outfit to my hair, do my makeup because I always do like a big Instagram post or my chemo days.
She poses with a sign that says what round of chemo she is in, similar to how some kids do on their first day of school.
And then I head off to the really fun part, which is the clinic, check-in, start with blood work.
Miranda has been cold capping, which is a process that involves wearing an ice-cold helmet before chemo treatments
So much worse than a brain freeze. I don’t know why people do it. I mean, I’m doing it because it’s the main goal is to prevent hair loss. In my case, hasn’t really worked out well. I’m probably down to like 10% of my hair.
After putting on the cold cap she gets IV set up with the chemo that runs for about five hours.
Altogether, it’s like a nine-hour day. And then I get home and it’s late and I’ll probably feed myself like ice cream or something like that feels like rewarding, you know?
If she could, she would tell her past self...
She’s going to be OK. She’s still living and living like living. Well, like not just like getting by. I’m having a lot of fun this semester.
Though this is not the sophomore year that Miranda would have ever expected. She has learned to enjoy the little things and find positivity in her situation.