This App Matches People Affected By Breast + Gynecologic Cancers With "Breast Friend" For Support

Allie Brumel, Bri Majsiak and Paige More founded The Breasties—the first all-inclusive nonprofit organization that creates community for survivors, previvors, thrivers, and carevivors, impacted by breast and gynecologic cancers—after their individual experiences with cancer led them to each other. 

"My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she unfortunately passed away when I was five years old," Bri says. "So, growing up with that experience I was well aware that I had high risk—and a few years ago I pursued genetic testing, and I was hoping to learn something definitive about my risk or a gene variant, [but] I got pretty inconclusive results. So, I decided it was best to be proactive and I decided to have the preventative mastectomy in June of 2020." 

Paige similarly decided to take preventative measures after learning of her grandma's diagnosis in 2017. 

"I lost my grandma to ovarian cancer and in 2017 I opted to have a preventative mastectomy after I found out I carried the BRCA variant," Paige shares. "Breast cancer and ovarian cancer run pretty deep in my family." 

As for Allie, she learned of her own diagnosis after having no known family history of cancer.  

"When I was 28 years old, I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer," Allie adds. "At that time, I didn't have a family history or a known family history of cancer, so it was a huge shock. I just felt so alone. I didn't know anybody else in their 20s going through what I was going through and it really changed my whole outlook during my treatment journey. So, while I was going through treatment, I knew that I wanted to do something with that. I wanted to help other people." 

And so, these three inspiring women yearning to help others like themselves found each other to make it happen. 

"I work in health journalism, and I met Paige while working on my Master's thesis for people at high risk for breast cancer, and we were just disappointed by the type of support that existed," Bri says.  

"When I first found out that I carried the BRCA gene, I felt completely alone and afraid. I really struggled to find people online that I felt like I could resonate with, so I started sharing my story online," Paige says. "I'm so thankful that I came across Paige's Instagram where she was sharing so openly about her recent mastectomy experience. From there, we started a friendship. She introduced me to Bri and the whole world just changed for me," says Allie.   

Together, they created The Breasties—with the goal of helping others find the kind of support they had found in each other. 

"We wanted other people to find their 'breast friend,' too, and that's really how Breasties was started," Paige says.   

"The app we just released is The Breasties app," Bri says. "We'll help you find your 'breast friend' based on location, age, stage, diagnosis, genetic history. On our media site, The Peak, we feature community voices, experts, resources." 

"The Breasties likes to create these resources that you can bring to your medical teams, so you can ask the right questions, feel empowered to know all your options and make the decisions that are best for you," Allie explains.