Cancer, Casually: Paige More

This week we sit down with Paige More (these days better known by her Insta moniker, Paige Previvor). As one of the co-founders of The Breasties, Paige aims to inspire those who are faced with cancer or who are genetically disposed to the disease, giving survivors and previvors alike a much needed voice in an otherwise quiet and scary space.So, what is a previvor anyway? A previvor is a person with a predisposition to cancer who hasn’t actually had the disease. In Paige’s case, she made a decision to have a preventative double mastectomy after finding out she was a carrier of the BRCA1 gene mutation which drastically increases the risk of getting cancer later in life. (Angelina Jolie famously made a similar decision in 2013, which catapulted the concept of preventative surgery into the public eye.)Paige, however, found it to be a very lonely experience -- one that lacked proper online advice and reading material for a young person faced with such a massive decision. At the time of her discovery, Paige was living her dream life in New York working as a producer on Good Morning America. She searched for a community grappling with the same doubts and fears, but instead found discouragement and shame. That’s when Paige went all Paige Previvor on us and turned her solitary experience into a call to action. It was in this moment that she made the commitment to “beat breast cancer before it got the chance to beat her.”Even though she had always been a private person, Paige decided to share the process on Instagram in hopes of helping women all over the world overcome their fear of cancer and alert more people to preventative options. She quickly went viral and realized hundreds of women had also felt alone and afraid before their surgeries. This crystallized her path and she knew it was her mission to be of guidance to those who were once in her shoes.Moved to make a difference, she, along with some of her #besties founded The Breasties, a non-profit organization that provides freeweekend wellness retreats for women affected by breast and ovarian cancer. The Breasties have become an inspiring, optimistic, badass babe community promoting self-love and care through one of life’s most challenging battles. This episode is all about taking charge of life, health, and yes, even tackling cancer with as much grit, kindness, and sisterhood as you can muster. And when you do that, you really canmove mountains -- which just so happens to be The Breasties mantra. How fitting!Listen on iTunes.[soundcloud id='492883737' height='false']