Dakota was 28, fit and healthy — until she wasn't.

Want to support independent women's media? Become a Mamamia subscriber and get an all-access pass to everything we make, including exclusive podcasts, articles, videos and our exercise app, MOVE.

Dakota Middleby is kind of blowing up on TikTok. The 29-year-old social media manager naturally knows a thing or two about the app, but she never saw it playing such a big part in her own story.

"I've made some beautiful friendships," she told Mamamia, of the community she's built online, with some of her posts attracting more than half a million views.

Watch Kris O'Neill on living with breast cancer on This Glorious Mess podcast. Post continues below.

"There's a girl in Denmark that I speak to and we talk as if we've been best girlfriends for years."

The thing is, Dakota's not using social media to share daily outfit inspiration or tell funny stories while filming makeup tutorials.

She has stage four cancer.

And for someone in their late twenties, who before March of this year had hardly given cancer a second thought, she's doing a superhuman job of educating others on what a HER2-positive breast cancer diagnosis can look like.

"I sort of thought, I could sit here and be sad about it and cry under the doona forever, or I could try and be a part of the change," she says, of the kind of education she wished she had access to in her early days navigating the medical system as a young woman.

Image: Supplied.

According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, cases of the HER2 positive subtype will make up around one in five of women with breast cancer, and it typically grows faster than other subtypes.

When Dakota's cancer was first diagnosed back in March, it was stage three. But she can't help questioning whether it might have been caught earlier, before it progressed to stage four, where it has since metastasised to her brain.

March 2025 wasn't the first time she'd noticed something off in her breast. Eight years earlier, at just 21, she'd gone to her GP for a fatty lump in the same breast that would later become the primary site of her HER2-positive diagnosis.

"He didn't take me very seriously," she recalls, and no further tests were ordered.

There's no way of knowing if an earlier investigation would have revealed anything – her oncologist has since explained that her cancer is so aggressive it likely wouldn't have started developing that long ago. Still, because it wasn't followed up, Dakota and her doctors can't help wondering whether that early lump might have been a sign worth monitoring more closely.

That uncertainty is a big part of what drives her now to speak out, encouraging other young women to trust their intuition when something doesn't feel right.

It was just three weeks before her 29th birthday, when again, Dakota would feel the first niggle that something wasn't right in her body.

She had spent the past week sitting at work, knowing something was off without knowing why.

"You know that feeling where you're wondering, 'is my period due? Why do I feel moody?'" she explains, but it was a constant ache in her armpit that tipped things over the edge. Trusting her intuition that this was not something to ignore, Dakota immediately booked an appointment with her GP.

"My doctor was amazing. She felt my lymph nodes and told me I might just be getting sick, but if it's still like this next week, come right back in."

With no developing symptoms to point to, a week later, Dakota's GP sent her for the ultrasound that would turn her life inside out.

Just hours after the test, driving home from a client shoot at work, her doctor called to tell her it was cancer.

"My whole world came crashing down. I was like, 'No, this is not real. There's no way'. I just remember screaming. I thought, 'No, there's literally no way this can be me.'"

Image: Supplied.

At just 28, she didn't see it coming. Like anyone enjoying their prime, Dakota had been planning what to wear for her upcoming girls' lunch – she hadn't been thinking about the worst-case scenario. But she quickly realised that for her, the best way to try to adjust to her new reality would be to connect with others. And beyond that, Dakota wanted to be a source of education and hope for others who might be walking behind her.

"Everyone always says, you don't want to be a part of this club, and it's true, but then there are those really beautiful perks of being a part of this club," she says about the incredible connections she has built, and the support she has felt from friends and family over the past six months.

It's Dakota's signature 'get shit done' attitude that has not only seen her build an incredible online community but also start a podcast, aptly named 'Bits and Boobs with co-host Bianca Innes, sharing the real side of cancer — you know, "the shit they don't put in the brochures."

Image: Supplied.

And her attitude is infectious. Just last week, she learned that a group of girlfriends had quietly created an initiative called Hope Rises, where people with cancer and their support systems can come to the beach on December 6 for a dip in the ocean, or just to connect over coffee and watch the tide.

"They want it to become a national thing," she says.

Listen to the Well podcast by Mamamia, your full body health check. Post continues below.

Of course, late-twenties life has a way of barrelling forward, and Dakota is taking every day as it comes with the support of her community and her partner, Alex.

"Sometimes I don't want to talk about it" she says, "but Alex said, you think you're going through this on your own, but we're going through this together. And he's right."

Image: Supplied.

Dakota's resilience is undeniable, and a big part of that comes from knowing she can face even the toughest parts of her new reality. Though she feels an ache watching as her friends announce engagements, travel the world and become parents – something she desperately wants for herself. "It's just so heartbreaking for me because all my partner and I want is a family," she says of not knowing what her fertility future holds.

For now, Dakota is busy bringing about the change she desperately wants to see in women's health. "Why don't we check our breasts like we brush our teeth?" she asks, "We do that every day without question. Why aren't we checking our boobs or lymph nodes the same way?"

And along with a community of like-minded friends and supporters, Dakota has gained a hard-earned perspective on just how precious this life can be. "One day when I raise children, that's how I want to bring them up — to appreciate every goddamn day."

You can listen to Bits and Boobs every other Monday and follow Dakota on TikTok and Hope Rises on Instagram.

Feature Image: Supplied.