Dikla Benzeevi

In honor of the 15 years Dikla has spent as a mets thriver and advocate, YSC has established a dedicated fund to be used for travel grants to help women with metastatic breast cancer to attend YSC’s Summit and Symposium. You can join us in honoring Dikla and her commitment to advocacy by making a gift of $15 or more.

Dikla's Story:

On August 19, 2002, Dikla Benzeevi got some unexpected news: she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 32 years old.

Though she had lost both of her parents to cancer, the possibility that she could be diagnosed herself at such a young age just wasn’t on her radar. Even still, with the help of her older brothers, she dove in, making innumerable appointments with specialists across Los Angeles, where she lived.

As the days and appointments ticked by, more details about her diagnosis emerged. The cancer was triple-positive. A scan revealed a suspicious nodule on her spine, but it was deemed a cyst, placing Dikla at stage III.

At that time drugs like Herceptin were not yet FDA-approved for someone in Dikla’s position, but she had heard about Herceptin and pushed until she found a doctor who agreed to treat her with it. A powerful self-advocate from the start, she sought out multiple opinions from across the U.S. and around the world to determine the best options for her treatment.

But the one thing she frustratingly could not find were other young women like her. She asked at doctors’ offices and hospitals to be connected, and reached out to support organizations. “I called so many hotlines, but no one had anyone close to my age,” she remembers.

Read the rest of Dikla's story here: http://bit.ly/2wuf5mb