Miranda McKeon is a recipient of the inaugural 2026 Phoenix Award, created by Living Beyond Breast cancer to honor members of the breast cancer community to recognize extraordinary resilience, transformation, and hope.
After spending nearly a decade as a professional child actor, Miranda McKeon had experience exploring different characters and worlds through her work.
But on her summer break after her freshman year at the University of Southern California, she did a casual “boob scoop” while changing clothes and felt a lump. What followed set her on track toward a completely different reality.
“I knew in my head that lump to me was like, ‘Red flag!’” she recalls.
Her instincts proved right: Within two weeks, she was diagnosed with stage III hormone-positive breast cancer, despite having no family history. She was just 19 years old.
“I started living a different life, on a different planet than I ever knew existed,” she describes.
Given that the average age of someone diagnosed with breast cancer is 64, Miranda’s experience is truly rare. But as U.S. health statistics have shown, the breast cancer incidence rate is rising in young people under age 45.
While she credits her age with helping her handle the physical aspects of treatment, it also presented her with an uncommon set of challenges.
Treatment and management of breast cancer for people younger than 45 involves a similarly complex but quite different set of decisions than someone older. Younger people with hormone-positive breast cancer, like Miranda, have to consider significantly longer-term effects of hormonal therapy on fertility, heart health, and bone health. They have to weigh the risks and benefits of inducing menopause decades before it might naturally occur.
What Miranda wanted most was the treatment with the best curative promise. But it was also important to make decisions that helped her maintain a sense of normalcy as a young adult and left her options for the phases of life she had not yet reached. The emotional complexity of fertility decisions and menopausal symptoms at 19 look very different than at 29 or 59.
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She began treatment immediately in nearby New York City, including undergoing fertility treatment to freeze her eggs, starting hormonal therapy alongside ovarian suppression, and beginning chemotherapy.
She then returned to USC for her sophomore year and completed her chemotherapy regimen in Los Angeles. Somehow, she managed to take a half courseload of credits for the fall semester before returning to full-time status in the spring. She then underwent a double mastectomy, breast reconstruction, and radiation.
How does a college student in medically induced menopause balance hot flashes and brain fog with literature readings and frat parties? Miranda was determined to find a way to live a full and vibrant life, and she started looking for more people like her to lean on.
The more visible aspects of treatment for someone Miranda’s age happened at a time when most adolescents are forming their identity. She recalls struggling most with her chemo-induced hair loss, and she sought out other young people online who were going through it, regardless of the type of cancer.
She and her mom found young female role models sharing on social media about their challenges with chemo and hormone-blocking treatments. Miranda would find inspiration in someone’s short hairstyle, or validation in another person’s story about what it’s like to be in menopause so young.
“That’s when I realized how important visibility is because it was something that I needed,” she says. “That was my lifeline.”
Once Miranda connected with other young people going through cancer, she realized that sharing the realities of navigating cancer treatment and life after cancer could impact a far broader audience. And her personal experience gave her more clarity about her purpose beyond show business.
“I was very burnt out of acting by the time I was diagnosed. Getting cancer, obviously you have awakenings to mortality and time and urgency,” she says. “It gave me permission to let go of that and hope that there would be more incredible chapters ahead.”
Despite some initial hesitation, she began sharing her breast cancer story. Her success acting as Josie Pye in the popular Netflix series “Anne with an E” as a young teen meant she had a public fan base on social media before her diagnosis.
Building on that audience, she started sharing the raw and real moments of treatment, grappling with hair loss and self-identity as a young person. She showed what it’s like to self-administer her ovarian suppression injections on camera, pairing the no-nonsense behind the scenes look with education and information about being young with breast cancer. She gave the highlights – and lowlights – of navigating the healthcare system as a young woman.
The response was overwhelming. She gets messages from women who have scheduled breast cancer screenings, uncovered their own family history and risk, and taken control over their health risks.
“In order to change the world, you need to change people’s behavior,” she says. “So when people take time out of their day to go schedule an appointment, it’s incredible.”
Miranda’s content also chronicles her own journey of finding her voice and advocating for herself. She champions young people to know their bodies, trust themselves, and take action – but she says it wasn’t always intuitive.
“I remember being young in the doctor’s office. My mom had to tell me to speak up,” she says. “My self-advocacy has grown as I’ve gained more confidence and experience. I’m still working on it.”
Her top tip? Bring a support person – a trusted family member or friend – along to major medical appointments, even if just by phone. She found having another person present for tough conversations can support processing a lot of information, help with clarifying questions, and emotional support.
Over time, Miranda’s vision has widened beyond just the breast cancer experience to broader women’s health topics.
Having recently celebrated her five-year “cancerversary,” Miranda is inspired to expand her impact across women’s health and empowerment.
“Through my work, have had the privilege of connecting with all kinds of women who are making change, whether it’s in athletics or in business, entrepreneurship,” she says.
The latest evolution of her advocacy is Pink365, a women’s media company focused on health and wellness. She hosts the Pink365 podcast, featuring conversations with women and health experts to inform and engage the audience on topics critical to women’s health. Naturally, early episodes focused on a range of breast cancer topics, informed by her own experience.
Pink365 is Miranda’s way to offer that encouragement to others, at scale.
It’s a vision she couldn’t have imagined five years ago, in some of the darkest days of her treatment journey. She admits it was hard to be patient and believe that she would get to the other side of it.
“I definitely didn’t think life could ever be this good,” says Miranda. “You can’t even imagine how good life will get.”
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The views and opinions of our bloggers represent the views and opinions of the bloggers alone and not those of Living Beyond Breast Cancer. Also understand that Living Beyond Breast Cancer does not medically review any information or content contained on, or distributed through, its blog and therefore does not endorse the accuracy or reliability of any such information or content. Through our blog, we merely seek to give individuals creative freedom to tell their stories. It is not a substitute for professional counseling or medical advice.
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Living Beyond Breast Cancer is a national nonprofit organization that seeks to create a world that understands there is more than one way to have breast cancer. To fulfill its mission of providing trusted information and a community of support to those impacted by the disease, Living Beyond Breast Cancer offers on-demand emotional, practical, and evidence-based content. For over 30 years, the organization has remained committed to creating a culture of acceptance — where sharing the diversity of the lived experience of breast cancer fosters self-advocacy and hope. For more information, learn more about our programs and services.