A new mom battling postpartum depression skipped a routine appointment. An unrelated visit led to an unexpected diagnosis.

Ameilia Boodoosingh Gopie didn’t expect the deep depression after the birth of her first daughter in August 2022. In the months that followed, Gopie struggled to get out of bed and couldn’t spend time with her daughter. Her husband was essentially “a single dad for eight months,” she said. Routine appointments fell by the wayside. 

After nearly a year, Gopie finally began to feel better. She was determined to make up for lost time. She took her daughter to visit family in New York, Canada and Trinidad. Soon, her daughter was walking and talking. Gopie was so distracted by “getting to love on my baby” that she continued skipping regular appointments. 

In December 2024, Gopie realized that a cut she had given herself while shaving had become infected. Her primary care physician reminded her of the importance of annual appointments, especially her mammogram. She said her dense breasts qualified her for earlier screenings. After their conversation, Gopie made an appointment. The results of her mammogram were abnormal, so her doctor ran another test. 

On Christmas Eve, she received the results: She had Stage III breast cancer. 

“Just saying that C-word ripped me and my husband to pieces,” Gopie, now 42, said. “I remember us both crying like two-year-olds. And my husband’s holding my daughter. My daughter’s like, ‘It’s OK, Dada. It’s OK, Mama.’ She didn’t know any better, she was just trying to make her parents stop crying.” 

Coping with aggressive treatment 

Gopie and her family celebrated that Christmas as normally as possible. On December 26, she said they “hit the ground running” to get a second opinion and figure out a treatment plan.

Further testing determined that Gopie had triple-positive breast cancer. The subtype affects about 10% of breast cancer patients, according to the Cleveland Clinic. It has hormone receptors that make it more likely to respond favorably to treatment, but tends to be aggressive and present at a later stage, said Dr. Stuart Samuels, a radiation oncologist at the University of Miami Health System’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center who treated Gopie. The disease had also spread to Gopie’s lymph nodes. 

Doctors recommended aggressive treatment beginning with chemotherapy. It had uncomfortable side effects, including pain, nausea and vomiting, Gopie said. Eventually, she lost her hair.

Through it all, Gopie said it was hard to spend time with her daughter or stay focused at work. Gopie did what she could, prioritizing family time. When she was too sick to be with her daughter, she wrote letters to her and planned activities for when she was feeling better. 

“As a mom, you just keep jumping through another hoop, and you’re like, ‘It’s OK, as long as she’s good,'” Gopie said. “You just keep going.” 

A video diary, recorded before each treatment session, became a surprising source of strength, she said.

“I would tell that video how I felt, if I was happy, if I was sad, if I was nervous, what I think I’m going to expect that day, what I think I want for that day. I prayed every day and I still pray, but talking to myself every time before chemo helped a lot,” Gopie said. “I realized doing those videos helped me to just release my feelings at that time.” 

“It gets overwhelming” 

After finishing chemotherapy, Gopie underwent a double mastectomy. Samuels said surgeons found “quite a bit of cancer left in the breast,” as well as in her armpit. That meant she would need radiation. 

Samuels administered the treatment over the next three weeks. Gopie said the radiation had new side effects, including intense headaches and a burning feeling in her skin. 

Later tests showed she would need more chemotherapy. The treatment was exhausting, Gopie said, and made it hard for her to work and spend time with her family. Most of her focus went to just putting one foot in front of the other, she said.  

Gopie is still “in a limbo area,” Samuels said, but “the hardest part is over.” When Gopie spoke to CBS News, she was still undergoing radiation, taking a daily medication and receiving a regular hormone therapy infusion.

“She still has an aggressive cancer, but she’s just living her life,” Samuels said. “Now it’s really about recovery and enjoying her daughter.” 

“Learning to be the new Ameilia”

Gopie said she has been working on finding a new normal. She recently had reconstructive surgery and said she is beginning to feel more like herself. 

“It’s interesting, you know, the life that I live. I’m trying to maintain the old Ameilia, but now to go through the new journey that I’m going through, I’m also learning to be the new Ameilia, who goes through pains and nausea and wakes up with huge headaches and has a three-year-old,” Gopie said. “It gets overwhelming.” 

Throughout it all, the depression that haunted Gopie early in her daughter’s life has never returned. 

“Thank goodness, I haven’t gone through that,” Gopie said. “I try my best to enjoy life. I know I’m going to be fine. I want to enjoy every second with my baby. I want to sing with her and laugh at her and dance with her and write things to her and leave it all over the house. I keep it positive.”