My tumor grew from the size of a Skittle to a grape while I went on vacation — now I’m 24 and going through menopause

Mood swings. Hot flashes. Night sweats. 

They’re symptoms most women expect in middle age, not when you’re barely old enough to rent a car.

But Alexis Klimpl was just 25 when the brutal reality of premature menopause struck. A year ago, though, she faced an even tougher battle — and was unsure if she’d live long enough to go through the so-called “change of life” at all.

A lump and a life-changing call

Lying in bed at home in San Diego one night last July, Klimpl reached down to scratch an itch — but her hand froze as her fingers brushed against a small, hard lump on her right breast.

“I shot up and looked over at my boyfriend, and my face just dropped,” she told The Post.

Her mind ran through the possibilities: fibrous tissue, a cyst, maybe even a benign tumor. But lurking in the back of her mind was a thought she couldn’t shake: breast cancer.

In 2025, the American Cancer Society estimates that 316,950 women in the US will be diagnosed with the disease — yet only a small fraction of these cases occur in women under 45. Even fewer are as young as Klimpl, then just 24.

Her thoughts quickly turned to her father, who had died of bile duct cancer at 67.

But Klimpl didn’t get it checked out immediately. Days later, she left for a three-week surfing trip to Indonesia to chase waves her father had introduced her to as a young girl.

“I wasn’t going to cancel that for anything,” she said.

The lump was the size of a Skittle when she left. When she returned less than a month later, it had grown to the size of a grape.

Alarmed, her doctor ordered a mammogram and biopsy. She then got a call asking her to come in the next day to discuss the results, sending her into a panic.

“I was spiraling,” she recalled. “What if it’s terminal? What if it’s growing faster than we can start chemo? What am I going to do about work? Oh god, am I going to be able to have kids one day?”

The next morning, her worst fears were confirmed: The lump was Stage 1 triple positive breast cancer. Two weeks later, an MRI showed it had advanced to Stage 2.

Facing the future

Doctors warned her that chemotherapy could threatened her ability to have children naturally — and hormone injections to stave off future cancer could send her into early menopause — so she met with a fertility specialist who recommended freezing her eggs.

What followed was a “brutal process” that took over her entire August, what Klimpl calls “one of the hardest parts of this whole journey.”

Even after egg retrieval, she was laid up for two weeks, unable to move from the abdominal soreness. The goal was 20 eggs. Doctors got 36.

Coping with chemo

Eggs frozen, Klimpl, a publicist, began six rounds of chemotherapy.

To try to save her hair, she did cold capping, a treatment that cools the scalp to about 37°F, reducing blood flow and making hair follicles less vulnerable to the drugs.

But the frozen headgear — worn before, during and after infusions — brought its own side effects, including headaches, chills, dizziness and scalp pain.

“I remember always thinking, this time I’m going to be strong, but then [the cap] touches you, and like a flip of a switch, you just absolutely lose it in front of a room full of strangers,” she said.

She ended up losing about 30% of her hair — and though she wondered if she’d have been better off shaving her head, she knew being bald, on top of everything else, “probably would have broken me.”

The rest of Klimpl’s chemo was milder than expected, with fatigue, body aches and a rash — though the queasiness tested her.

“This nausea was in my bones,” Klimpl recalled. “I felt it all over my body. It was always there, every single day, for 4½ months.”

But the hardest part was being cut off from the ocean — her main source of stress relief — since the salt water could interfere with her cold cap treatments.

“My dad was the person who taught me how to surf, and that’s how I’ve always felt most connected to him, so it was pretty emotionally dark for me,” Klimpl said.

She also felt isolated. The young survivor group at her hospital mostly included women in their 40s and 50s, many married with kids.

“It was hard seeing people my age going out and having fun, meeting new people,” she said. “My life was on pause.”

Surgery, sacrifice and survival

Klimpl finished chemotherapy in December. Her tumor had shrunk significantly.

Soon after, she faced a tough series of surgeries: tumor removal in late January, a double mastectomy a week later and breast reconstruction in May.

The decision to remove both breasts wasn’t easy. “If you get a double, you lose feeling in all of your chest and you can’t breastfeed your kid,” Klimpl said.

Still, the fear of recurrence lingered.

“My turning point was realizing I needed to do this for myself,” she said. “Not for the kid I don’t even have yet.”

Right before her second surgery, as anesthesia took hold, her surgeon told her she was in remission.

Hormones and hardships

Over the next year, Klimpl will get hormone infusions to lower the risk of cancer returning. For the following decade, she’ll take a daily pill that stops her ovaries from producing estrogen to reduce the chance of recurrence even further.

The treatment pushed her into menopause decades early, bringing a host of uncomfortable symptoms.

“I have hot flashes, like, 20 times throughout the day,” she said, noting that she also struggles with insomnia, joint pain, vaginal dryness and mood swings.

“I’m depressed one day, I’m over the moon the next, and then I’m just numb,” Klimpl said.

Strength in struggle

Despite everything, Klimpl is holding onto hope for the future.

“I know I’ve always been a really strong person because of what I’ve gone through, but this has taught me that the sky is limitless with what I can do,” Klimpl said.

It also shifted her perspective on life itself.

“We always think that we’re going to be young and healthy forever, and that’s just not the case,” she added.

Before her diagnosis, her mom would tell her “I love you” countless times a day. While she appreciated the affection, she admitted it could sometimes feel a bit much — especially when the messages popped up during work hours.

“She’d always say, ‘You never know when the last time is going to be,’ and I would always get mad at her for saying that,” Klimpl remembered. “But now I’m like, damn, she knew all along.”