Jessica Baladad: How Self-Advocacy & AI are Revolutionizing Breast Cancer Awareness

The Tragedy Academy

In this episode, Jay speaks with Jessica Baladad, a six-year breast cancer survivor and the creator of Feel For Your Life—a groundbreaking app providing tools for breast self-exams, health tracking, and AI-based pathology interpretations.

Key Points:
🎙 Jessica shares her inspiring journey of survival, advocacy, and innovation, discussing:
✅Why self-exams save lives and how to perform them
💡Navigating a broken healthcare system
🧠How AI is changing the way breast cancer is diagnosed
📚Her fight for legislation to educate teens on self-exams
💪Overcoming shame, fear, and embracing empowerment

About Jessica:
Jessica Baladad, a six-year cancer survivor, is the creator of Feel For Your Life. This free mobile application provides resources on how to perform self-breast exams and when to get screenings while allowing users to track and monitor their changes and set reminders. An unexpected breast cancer diagnosis at 33 years old empowered Jessica to channel her experience into a mission that is changing the way women advocate for their medical care. It’s the first of its kind created by a breast cancer patient and has been downloaded tens of thousands of times all over the world. In 2024, Jessica implemented an AI feature into the app to help patients interpret and better understand pathology reports from their breast cancer screenings. Jessica’s history with breast cancer catalyzed her dedication to building Feel For Your Life. She’s the fourth generation on her paternal side of the family to be diagnosed with the disease, and yet, no known gene mutation has been found in her lineage. She first learned how to do a self-breast exam after having a benign tumor removed at 18, and nearly 15 years later, Jessica was diagnosed with Stage 2B invasive ductal carcinoma after performing a routine self-exam in the shower. She underwent 16 rounds of chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, 24 rounds of radiation, a hysterectomy, and a 10-hour flap reconstruction.

Since launching the app, Jessica has expanded her advocacy into healthcare reform. She has helped write legislation in Tennessee to promote risk-reducing measures against cancer and disease. Billed as the Feel For Your Life Act, high school students are required to learn about self-breast exams, testicular exams, and skin exams. Additionally, Jessica has spoken out against insurance companies before members of Congress. She works to eliminate quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) scores, Pharmacy Benefits Managers (PBMs), and co-pay accumulators. Jessica plans to grow her efforts further by working with medical providers, patients, and vendors to bridge the gaps that keep individuals from getting access to the care they deserve.

Jessica has been featured on Good Morning America, Tank’s Good News, USA Today, The Dave Ramsey Show, UpWorthy, and several national and international media outlets. She’s worked with the NFL on their Crucial Catch Campaign to promote cancer screenings, received the Hometown Hero Award from Ponce Law on Nashville’s Fox 17, has been recognized by the National Breast Cancer Foundation for her leadership initiatives, and was the recipient of the Mona Lisa Foundation Grant in 2023. In 2020, the NFL’s Crucial Catch Campaign partnered with Jessica to spread awareness about the importance of screenings being missed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She is an active Tennessee Advocate for Breast Cancer (TA4BC) group committee member.

When Jessica is not working on patient advocacy, she enjoys traveling and exploring new places, attending sporting events with her husband, and photographing animals.

Feel For Your Life App
Website: feelforyourlife.com
Socials: @feelForYourLife
💖 Be Cool & Keep Learning.

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