My Cancer Story: From Patient to Advocate

by Bag It Team | Nov 3, 2026 | Blog

By Kimberly Poole

Editor’s Note: This story was told at our Breakfast for Bag It event this year.  You may also watch or share the video.

I want to take you back to September 17th, 2020.

That was the day I had my first breast ultrasound.

I had found a lump in my breast, but at the time, I was breastfeeding. I was young, and I was told that I was too young for breast cancer and that it was most likely a tumor related to breastfeeding.

I was told to come back in six months and that they would do a biopsy then.

So I went home.

And I waited.

But that lump didn’t go away.

I watched it grow. And every single day, I had this physical reminder in my chest that something wasn’t right.

Looking back, I wish I could go back to that first ultrasound and advocate for myself more strongly. I wish I had pushed for the biopsy that day.

On April 8th, 2021, I finally had that biopsy.

And on April 12th, everything changed.

I was diagnosed with stage 3C triple-negative invasive ductal carcinoma, and I also learned that I carried a BRCA1 genetic mutation.

I went from thinking I had a breastfeeding-related tumor to suddenly hearing the word  cancer.

There really isn’t a way to explain what that feels like.

You’re suddenly handed an entirely new vocabulary.

Biopsies. Scans. Ports. Chemotherapy. Genetics. Treatment plans.

And you’re expected to understand all of it while you’re scared out of your mind and in my case raising a family and working full time. 

I started chemotherapy on May 6th, 2021.

I went through four rounds of Adriamycin—what many of us affectionately call the Red Devil—followed by Taxol and carboplatin.

My treatment became my calendar.

Appointments became my schedule.

Medications became my routine.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I was given a Bag It Bag.

And that bag became so much more than a bag.

The binder inside became my document collector, my day planner, and honestly, my best friend.

It gave me somewhere to put all of the paperwork that seemed to multiply overnight.

My test results.

My questions.

My appointments.

My medications.

All of the things that I suddenly had to keep track of when my brain was already overwhelmed.

But more importantly, Bag It gave me something I desperately needed at that point in my life:

A little bit of control.

Cancer can make you feel like everything is happening to you.

Bag It helped me feel like I could participate in what was happening with me.

It gave me tools to become more informed, to organize my care, to ask questions, and to advocate for myself.

And I can tell you firsthand—that matters.

Because cancer doesn’t just happen to your body.

It happens to your entire life.

It affects your family, your work, your relationships, your mental health, and your sense of who you are.

And suddenly, you have to become an advocate for yourself while you’re also trying to figure out how to survive.

I finished my IV chemotherapy in September of 2021.

In November, I had my double mastectomy, along with reconstruction and the removal of my tubes and ovaries.

And in December, I started Lynparza.

Two pills, twice a day, for an entire year.

1,460 pills.

And one day at a time, I kept moving forward.

But something else happened during this experience.

I found my voice.

I started talking about my cancer.

I started sharing my experience.

And I started advocating—not just for myself, but for other people who might find themselves sitting in that same terrifying place I had once been sitting.

Through that advocacy, Bag It gave me another incredible opportunity.

I had the honor of participating in Escape to THRIVE—a wonderful advocacy conference hosted by Bag It that focuses entirely on empowering advocates and helping us bring our best selves forward.

 That experience helped me in a completely different way.

The Bag It Bag helped me learn how to navigate cancer as a patient.

Escape to THRIVE helped me learn how to navigate it as an advocate.

It gave me an opportunity to connect with other advocates, learn how to care for myself, and understand that being an advocate doesn’t mean you have to pour every ounce of yourself into helping everyone else.

You have to take care of the person doing the advocating, too.

And for me, Escape to THRIVE helped me develop my voice even more.

It helped me take everything I had experienced—everything that had scared me, frustrated me, and changed me—and turn it into something that could hopefully help somebody else.

And that’s why I’m asking you to consider supporting Bag It today.

Because I know firsthand what their support can mean to someone who has just heard the words:

“You have cancer.”

That bag may look like a simple binder and bag from the outside.

But to me, it became so much more.

There are people being diagnosed with cancer every single day who are going to find themselves exactly where I was scared, overwhelmed, and suddenly responsible for navigating a healthcare system they never expected to have to understand.

Your donation can help put those resources into the hands of someone who needs them at one of the most frightening moments of their life.

It can help give patients the tools to understand their diagnosis, organize their treatment, ask better questions, and find their voice.

And I can tell you from personal experience:

That matters.

So if my story has touched you today, if you believe patients deserve to feel informed and empowered, or if you’ve ever had someone you love face cancer, I hope you’ll consider making a donation to Bag It.

Because you never know whose hands that next Bag It Bag will end up in.

And maybe it will help someone else find their way through the chaos the way it helped me find mine.

Because I can’t change what happened to me.

I can’t go back to September 17th, 2020 and change that first ultrasound.

I can’t erase the year of treatment.

I can’t erase the fear.

But I can decide what I do with that experience.

And if sharing my story makes one person realize that they aren’t too young…

If it makes one person ask another question…

Get a second opinion…

Push for a biopsy…

Or simply feel a little less alone after hearing the words “you have cancer”…

Then everything I’ve been through has a purpose beyond just my own survival.

Because I went from being told that I was too young for cancer…

to being diagnosed with stage 3C cancer.

And that happened in the blink of an eye.

So if there is one thing I hope you remember from my story, it’s this:

Listen to your body.

Trust your gut.

Ask the questions.

And most importantly, advocate for yourself.

Because you know your body better than anyone else.

And sometimes, being your own advocate can quite literally change the course of your story.

Today, I don’t just consider myself someone who survived cancer.

I consider myself someone who found her voice because of it.

And I’m incredibly grateful that Bag It was there to help me find that voice—and to remind me that even in the middle of something terrifying, I didn’t have to navigate it alone.

I’m still here.

And I am incredibly grateful to be. 💗