When Ph.D. student LaShae Rolle felt a pain in her chest, she didn’t think much of it at first.
A little soreness made sense: she was working hard in the gym, preparing to bench press nearly 300 pounds for a powerlifting competition.
The pain came and went, but then Rolle noticed a lump in her breast, a textbook warning sign of breast cancer. It was a red flag she was deeply familiar with from her own studies on cancer prevention and treatment.
At 26, Rolle never expected to live through it herself. She had no family history of the disease and no genetic risk factors.
Still, she took her symptoms seriously. She scheduled a check-up and mammogram for peace of mind. When the results came back, she and the medical technicians were shocked to discover it was cancer.
“This was not on my radar. I only did it to check the box so I didn’t have any regrets moving forward,” Rolle told Business Insider.
Now 28, Rolle said she’s working to raise awareness about cancer screenings for young patients who may not even realize they’re sick.
“The only reason I was able to recognize the signs early on is because of my background being in a lab learning about cancer control and prevention,” she said. “I’m very grateful; not everybody knows.”
Unique challenges for young cancer patients
Even a decade ago, certain cancers were rarely diagnosed in younger patients. The median age for breast cancer is 62, and for people without a genetic risk or family history of the disease, preventive screenings don’t start until the age of 40.
Increasingly, patients in their 20s and 30s are being diagnosed with breast cancer, as well as colorectal cancer. It’s a big problem for the healthcare industry, accustomed mainly to treating very young or older patients, to tackle the growing number of early-onset cancer patients.
Rolle said she saw this firsthand at the cancer center where she underwent treatment. In the waiting room, she was the youngest patient by decades. When her mom accompanied Rolle to appointments, the medical staff assumed her mother was the patient.
It was an intensely isolating experience, Rolle said, compounded by having to postpone some major exams for her Ph.D. After struggling to find peers she could relate to, Rolle said an app called Cancer Buddy helped her connect with patients of a similar age and diagnosis.
That community of young patients was key to dealing with the distinct challenges of treatment in her 20s, Rolle said: the financial burden, the rush for fertility preservation, and the shattered illusion of youthful invincibility.
“It’s very hard, especially when you’re young, because we think nothing can happen to us,” Rolle said. “You have to just come to grips with what is your reality right now and find ways to accept it.”
Working out to fight cancer
After the initial shock of the diagnosis, Rolle saw a unique opportunity to put everything she had studied into practice.
She had pursued oncology to understand how to stave off disease with exercise and diet. In fact, one of the first questions she asked her Ph.D. mentor was about whether cancer patients should work out.
She had been lifting since college, where she hit the gym during basketball training, but decided she preferred lifting heavy to running up and down the court.
So when she became the patient, Rolle had no intention of giving up weightlifting even during treatment. Guidelines suggest light exercise can help cancer patients, but don’t say much about intense workouts.
When there wasn’t much information on what she should do, Rolle researched and wrote it herself. She published her experience in 2025 case study, the first of its kind to analyze elite powerlifting during chemotherapy.
Rolle used everything she knew about the benefits of weight training, combined with conditioning exercise like biking, to make exercise a part of her plan to recovery plan.
Throughout treatment, including surgeries, she maintained about 90% of her strength and said that being an athlete helped her meet the challenge head-on. It even prompted the doctors she spoke with to start recommending more exercise to patients.
“It completely changed the way I did things,” Rolle said. “I don’t think I would’ve had the confidence to do this, nor the expertise in this area to even try something like this. It’s crazy when I look back at it.”
Rolle completed her cancer treatment in October 2024 and is in remission. Her recent scans continue to come back clear. She still takes medication and hormone therapy, and will do so for the next eight years to stay cancer-free.
In the meantime, Rolle is back on track to graduate with her Ph.D. this spring. She’s still lifting heavy, thinking about returning to powerlifting competitions, and coming to terms with her new identity as a cancer survivor.
“For me, it just looks like trying not to stress, getting stuff done, advocating, doing research, living my life to the best possible ability I can,” Rolle said.
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