How This Breast Cancer Survivor Is Taking Back the Month of October for Fellow Warriors

Trish Michelle, founder of Reclaim October, is using her platform to raise money for Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer.

Trish Michelle / SHE Media/Getty Images

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, one in eight women in the U.S. will develop breast cancer in their lifetimes. Aside from skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer among U.S. women. This October, SI Swimsuit is committed to providing resources for breast cancer patients while sharing the stories of warriors who have been impacted by the disease. For more information, click here.

Two weeks after an annual physical, Trish Michelle found what she describes as a boulder-sized lump in her breast. While she had just seen her general practitioner and received a clean bill of health, the then 36-year-old immediately called her doctor to flag her finding.

Met with resistance, Michelle had to demand to be seen again, and when her physician did a second breast exam, she was shocked to hear her doctor say he didn’t feel anything. When Michelle directed her doctor to the lump in her breast, he claimed it was likely just due to her menstrual cycle.

Michelle advocated for a mammogram and received a diagnosis of Stage 1 invasive ductal carcinoma in July 2016. She chose to have a double mastectomy, and during her operation, her surgeons found more areas of cancer, upstaging Michelle’s diagnosis to Stage 3 IDC at the age of 37.

Trish Michelle / Courtesy of Trish Michelle

“That was a pretty rough way to begin my breast cancer journey, but I think an important lesson that I learned very early about self-advocacy and kind of pushing against the grain, going against the grain. Where I was normally very agreeable, I learned that I had to fight for my life,” Michelle says. “ And so I carried that through chemo, radiation, all of it.”

In July, Michelle celebrated nine years of being cancer free, though she says survivorship is not without its challenges. She is still in active treatment and will be on endocrine therapy for another two years.

“ I celebrate every day everything I’ve been through, but nothing could have prepared me for post-cancer,” Michelle says. “I think the healthcare system gets you that far, they get the cancer out of you and they get you through treatment, but not enough has been done to meet cancer patients where they are as far as quality of life and things to expect. So I’m still kind of navigating the lumps and bumps and fears of recurrence as someone who’s still in the cancer community very actively.”

Taking back the month with Reclaim October

The first Breast Cancer Awareness Month following her diagnosis felt different to Michelle, as the campaigns she saw were now speaking directly to her. However, by her fourth year of survivorship, Michelle describes getting “the ick” ahead of brands rolling out their October marketing campaigns.

 “It felt almost like a parade was rolling into town, that people were starting to put out their marketing plans and invite people to buy their products, and I remember looking at it with a critical eye and saying, ‘What charity is getting these profits? And who in this organization or corporation had cancer in order to be taking up space in such a way?’” she says. “I learned that the ick that I was feeling was a response to pinkwashing.”

Pinkwashing is the practice of cause marketing in which brands promote products during Breast Cancer Awareness Month without being transparent about how those goods and services actually benefit research efforts. And in some extreme cases, companies create misleading promotions in which they make a profit rather than donating to a worthy cause.

Trish Michelle / Courtesy of Trish Michelle

“ Myself and all the community members, those impacted by breast cancer, were just saying to ourselves, ‘This is disgusting that people would take this as an opportunity to make money. We should really take back the month. This month belongs to us,’” Michelle says. “People impacted by breast cancer should be on the front lines leading the conversations and leading the efforts and we should really reclaim October.”

Reclaim October began as a group effort in 2020 to give the power back to those impacted by breast cancer. The movement challenges the commercialization of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and instead amplifies grassroots charities that are doing great work for breast cancer research. In addition to providing some incredibly educational resources, the organization works with The Breasties to donate 100% of funds raised through Reclaim October’s efforts to the metastatic breast cancer research program at Magee-Womens Research Institute. This year specifically, the grant will go toward the hospital’s lobular breast cancer research.

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During its first year, Reclaim October raised $5,000 in one month alone on Instagram, and now in its sixth year, as of press time, the organization has raised $44,596, far surpassing its $20,000 goal.

A huge component of Reclaim October’s efforts involves community-centered storytelling. Michelle reminds us that so many well-meaning supporters often assume that once someone rings the bell and is finished with cancer treatment, their journey is over.

“ For us, we will never move on,” Michelle says. “We just probably get better at masking. I think showing these real stories and the realities of breast cancer will also result in people getting better support from coworkers, employers and loved ones, knowing that it’s not over because you rang the bell—or for thrivers, those that are metastatic, they never get a chance to ring the bell ... So story sharing is as important, if not more important, for us as well.”

Fostering community with The Breasties

In addition to being Reclaim October’s founder, Michelle is also the Chief Community Officer of The Breasties. While she started out as an ambassador for the nonprofit’s New York chapter, Michelle now serves in a leadership role in which she gets to unite community members.

“ It’s been the joy of my life to now be this person that I was looking for when I was diagnosed,” Michelle says. “In 2016, I wasn’t finding in my environment young Black women navigating being a parent and navigating dating or relationships and so now I can be that person for the community members and seeing it grow in such a substantive way lets me know that we’re on the right track.”

Trish Michelle / Courtesy of Trish Michelle

Teaching community members how to become empowered patients and advocates is Michelle’s greatest joy in her role, and really brings things full-circle. She reiterates that the first hard lesson she learned in her breast cancer journey was getting used to the idea that self-advocacy might be met with resistance in a medical setting, but it’s important for women to speak up for themselves.

“ Advocacy is self-care, and you need to put yourself first,” Michelle urges. “As a woman, we always put ourselves last. Put the husband, put the children, put the spouse, put the parents, put everyone [else first]. When I got cancer was the first time I put myself first in such a way and that has sustained me throughout. It’s O.K. not to be liked, but guess what? You get to be alive. You get to be alive, and so that is the first thing and most important thing to contend with.”

PINKTOBER resources EDITED AGAIN. https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/v1759326461/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/si_swimsuit/01k6g0epzrfe5pbhp511.jpg. https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/v1759326461/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/si_swimsuit/01k6g0epx2cbb70y4kje.jpg. Resources for POC. https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/v1759326461/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/si_swimsuit/01k6g0epzmb0pcez0mvb.jpg. Community Support Guide. Breast Self-Exam How To