Karmina Barrales - Portrait of an AYA Cancer Survivor

AYA Cancer Survivors

Kirollos Gendi

As a child, Kirollos "Cookie" Gendi thought of himself as "sporty," a kid who could play soccer, basketball and run around with his siblings. But when he was diagnosed with stage 1 Ewing’s sarcoma at age 9, his self-perception changed, and he adapted. Read more

Karmina Barrales

Karmina Barrales says she named her daughter Natalia Guadalupe because she prayed to the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe to make her a mother if it was meant to be and, if – as an ovarian cancer survivor – she could conceive. Read more

Andre Cote

Andre Cote, 27, says his cancer diagnosis at 22 may have stunned his doctors as much as it did him. "Doctors don’t want to believe that someone as young as I was has cancer," says Cote. Read more

Lisa Ann Marie Stamps

Lisa Ann Marie Stamps was 36 and home from her honeymoon just a few weeks when she was diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer. A former beauty queen, hula dancer and martial artist, the diagnosis slapped Stamps doubly hard because she has always taken impeccable care of her body. Read more

Danny Cocke

At age 22, Danny Cocke was reveling in the newfound independence of young adulthood when cancer sent him back home into the fold of his family, and into an awkward period of dependence. Read more

Karmina Barrales After aggressive chemotherapy and surgery to remove her ovary, Barrales, now 32, has been cancer-free for nearly a decade.

Barrales has had a long journey to motherhood. As a 22-year-old student at California State University, Chico, she noticed strange symptoms in her abdominal area, but didn’t follow through with testing because she had no health insurance.

Fast forward a year or so, and the symptoms and pain increased enough to send her to the emergency room, where she had a vaginal ultrasound. Doctors found a tumor and ultimately diagnosed her with stage 3 ovarian cancer. After aggressive chemotherapy and surgery to remove her ovary, Barrales, now 32, has been cancer-free for nearly a decade.

As a young woman and newlywed, her initial diagnosis was devastating on two levels – for the possibility of her not surviving the cancer and the possibility that she could not conceive. Barrales says she and her husband were at peace with the idea of adopting children, but still tried for three years to conceive. Barrales endured a miscarriage and the couple were about to give up trying when – without the help of fertility treatments – they conceived Natalia, now 17 months.

"She’s our little mascot for the National Ovarian Cancer Network," says Barrales.

Barrales credits her husband, Antonio, as much as her doctors, for saving her.

"If it wasn’t for Antonio driving me, I wouldn’t have shown up for chemo," she says.

The cancer and treatments solidified their bond as husband and wife, she says. Now Barrales is raising their daughter, working on her master’s degree in education, and with the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, guiding others throughout diagnosis and treatment.