2 Colorado sisters diagnosed with cancer days apart; one for second time

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. ( KDVR ) — October is breast cancer awareness month, and two local sisters are sharing their journey in the hope that it can help protect other families.

Growing up together four years apart, sisters Jessica Rodriguez and Janelle Martinez have faced a lot together, especially back when Jessica was 24.

“I was laying in bed one night and I was watching a show and they were talking about, you know, women should check themselves on their breasts. And I was like, oh, I was thinking to myself, I’ve never did that, you know,” Rodriguez said. “So I decided to do it. I felt a pebble right away.“

Way too young for the traditional age to get a mammogram, Jessica pushed for testing and learned she had breast cancer.

“They tested me for the BRCA gene, I didn’t have it, so it was just a shock,” Rodriguez said. “They were, ‘Where did this come from? How did you get it?’”

A couple of years after her diagnosis, Rodriguez learned she had another genetic mutation, PALB2.

“It is kind of like a cousin, my doctor said, to the BRCA gene,” Rodriguez said. “I didn’t know anything about it. Anybody I talked to about it doesn’t know anything about it.”

She sent her test results to her sisters. Now, 11 years after that diagnosis, Rodriguez and her sister were both diagnosed with cancer in July, within days of each other.

“I’m going to beat this again and I’m going to be here for my kids and for my family,” Rodriguez said. “I really think it’s really important to just, to have hope and faith.”

The sisters hope their story can help other families.

“Forties is like the youngest that my doctors are saying that you should get a mammogram and I think that needs to change, that’s ridiculous,” Rodriguez said. “Never in my life or never have I heard of anyone getting breast cancer so young as I did. We just want to bring awareness to women and especially young women.”

Loved ones made a GoFundMe for Rodriguez as she goes through this second battle with cancer and can’t work.

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