My cancer journey began when I was 19. I received a phone call from my mother telling me she had been diagnosed with stage 3B breast cancer while pregnant with my sister. I left my fellowship at Alvin Ailey and became her caregiver. I supported her through pregnancy, birth, and forced menopause — all while continuing my studies as a movement artist.

In 2019, her cancer returned and metastasized to her bones and brain. I shared the role of caregiver until she transitioned in early 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. After her passing, I began screening both my breasts and ovaries more seriously. Just two years later, an MRI revealed a small triple-negative breast tumor. As I underwent testing in preparation for chemotherapy, I began experiencing pain in my abdomen. At a fertility appointment, doctors discovered a second primary tumor — stage 3B ovarian cancer.

This led to six rounds of high-dose chemotherapy to treat both primaries, a total hysterectomy, a double mastectomy, and two years of a full-dose PARP inhibitor.

Later, as genomic profiling expanded, I learned that I am BRCA1 positive. This knowledge reframed my story, connecting my mother’s path and my own within a larger genetic and generational inheritance.

These experiences — of surviving, caregiving, grieving, and living inside systems of medicine — taught me what it means to move while hurting, to listen for pleasure next to pain, and to hold intimacy inside of rupture. They are the ground from which yesicame is born.