Once they both got the diagnosis— the same exact diagnosis— the sisters decided to document their journey on social media to spread awareness.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte family is dealing with the unthinkable—two sisters, both under the age of 35, both battling a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer at the same time.
They wanted to spread awareness about the disease, so they’re documenting their journey in what have become very popular social media posts.
Several of The Cooper Sisters social media posts have gone viral but the one where the women are sitting there, bald heads on full display, answering questions from their mom, got more hits than anything else they’ve posted.
Lyndsay Cooper is 32 and tells the camera, “I was recently diagnosed with stage two triple negative breast cancer.”
Katie Cooper is 28 and told followers, “I live in Charlotte, North Carolina and I also have stage two triple negative breast cancer.”
Lyndsay responds, “Yep that’s my sister and yes we both have triple negative breast cancer at the same time.”
They were diagnosed just two weeks apart.
“In September I woke up one morning and feels like a golf ball in my chest, rock hard and I’m like this doesn’t seem right. A biopsy confirmed it was in fact breast cancer,” Katie said.
Lyndsay recalls this memory, vividly.
“She found a lump and called me to let me know and said ‘will you please go get checked’ so, that day I went to the gym and I was in the shower and I was like ‘I’ll do a self-check’ and I felt a lump and I said ‘there’s no way,” Lyndsay said.
The girls’ mom, Leah Cooper, remembers her thoughts when she first found out.
“It’s crazy! What the heck, right? It just felt so crazy,” she said, adding, she was wondering what the next steps were.
“The type of cancer we have triple negative. It grows really fast and is really aggressive so I feel so lucky we both caught it super early. And it’s insane, the tumor is the same size, same staging, same course of treatment, so it’s really, really bizarre,” Lyndsay said.
Part of the reason they both caught it so early is that the sisters are hyper-aware of the risks of breast cancer. They started getting regular mammograms three years ago after learning they both carry the BRCA1 gene—a mutation that makes women more likely to develop breast cancer.
“When I was 25, I did 23andMe mostly to figure out, because we have two moms and they used a sperm donor, we always knew there were probably half siblings out there,” Lyndsay explained.
Katie said, “We found out we were 50% Jewish, Ashkenazi Jewish, which is a risk factor for the BRCA1 mutation.”
“From there I was getting regular MRI’S and getting checked out,” Lyndsay said.
Once they both got the diagnosis— the same exact diagnosis— the sisters decided to document their journey on social media.
“With TikTok, its been wild to hear so many women messaging us ‘I’m in my 20s, I’m in my 40s and had cancer’,” Lyndsay said.
Lyndsay is grateful for the posts and the impacts they’re having.
“If one other young person sees this and is like ‘oh my gosh there’s someone else going through this too’ and be able to make that connection, that’s a really special thing,” she said.
“I’m so proud of them and would love to not have this to be proud of them about. This is just their interest, in supporting other people, the way they’ve responded,” their mother said.
“I don’t want this to happen to anyone else, so if I can encourage people to get tested for BRCA1, even if you don’t have a family history, it’s more common than people think and just knowing and being able to go get preventative checks gives you such a peace of mind,” Lyndsay said.
Both sisters will finish chemotherapy and then have double mastectomy. Their surgeries are scheduled just two weeks apart.
Contact Michelle Boudin at mboudin@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
