In April 1994, when Nikia Hammonds-Blakely was 16, she felt a lump in her breast during a morning shower. A family doctor performed a biopsy, assuring her that it was “probably nothing serious.” But despite having no family history of breast cancer, Hammonds-Blakely soon learned she had a rare and aggressive form of the condition. After undergoing painful radiation treatment and a partial mastectomy, she beat it, but her life was forever changed. “The trauma of balling up gym socks to get that symmetry right was really hard,” Hammonds-Blakely says of adjusting to her uneven breasts. “I’ll never forget those moments.”
Eighteen cancer-free years later, the Frisco, Texas, resident was told at her annual mammogram that even though the images of her tissue looked “suspicious,” there was probably nothing to fear. She insisted on further testing. “It turned out to be breast cancer in the opposite breast,” she recalls. “It never would have been caught had I not championed my own care.”
Today, at 41, Hammonds-Blakely is a spokeswoman for the Know Your Girls campaign, a national effort by the Susan G. Komen organization and the Ad Council to inform Black women about early detection and self-advocacy. “You have to know your normal and be able to say, ‘Something is not right.’”
With the help of Know Your Girls, Nikia hopes to serve, save and empower other Black women. “[I want my legacy to be that] I used my voice. That what I knew, I shared. And that somebody else was a little better off because of it.”