Nikki Cox: Finding Connection and Confidence After Breast Cancer

— By Megan Brown, Marketing & Communications Support

October 20, 2025

When Nikki Cox moved from the UK to the United States in 2019, she brought her passion for helping women look and feel their best. In England, she built a successful personal styling business called I’ve Got Nothing to Wear, a reflection of her belief that “clothing really makes a difference in how confident you feel.”

She sold her business before the move, but after relocating to Scottsdale, Arizona, new friends in Arizona encouraged her to start fresh. She launched Scottsdale Style Concierge to again help women rediscover their style. However, not long after her business began to flourish, Nikki’s life changed.

Facing a Breast Cancer Diagnosis

In October 2024, a conversation with her best friend prompted Nikki to go to the doctor. Her friend recently had basal cell carcinoma removed from her nose and urged Nikki to get a spot on her own nose checked.

Nikki’s nose was fine, but the dermatologist’s thorough exam revealed a swollen lymph node under her arm. A mammogram, ultrasound, and two biopsies quickly followed.

“Within a week after that phone call with my friend,” Nikki said, “I was diagnosed with lobular and ductal breast cancer in my right breast and confirmed involvement in at least one lymph node.”

Life Turned Upside Down

Two weeks after her diagnosis, Nikki had a bilateral mastectomy, a date she plans to celebrate this year with a fashion show marking one year since her surgery. “If someone had told me on October 1, during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, that I’d be diagnosed, I would have laughed,” she said. “I had no symptoms because with lobular breast cancer, it’s not always a lump.”

She credits her dermatologist’s thoroughness. “Had I been in the UK, I doubt the doctor would have even touched my armpit, let alone found and suspected something suspicious in my lymph node,” Nikki said.

Finding Connection Through ABCD

Despite a loving family and supportive friends, Nikki was the only person in her circle that had experienced a breast cancer diagnosis: “There was no one I knew that I could turn to.”

In her search for information about lobular breast cancer, she discovered ABCD: After Breast Cancer Diagnosis. The idea of one-to-one peer support stood out immediately. “It wasn’t just a website or a forum,” she said. “It was more personal. You could speak to a real person who’d been through it.”

Within days, ABCD matched Nikki with her Mentor, Jennifer—just before Nikki’s surgery. “She texted me the morning of my surgery and I had at least a two-hour call with her about three days after when I was at my lowest,” Nikki said. “She understood what I was feeling.”

That day, Nikki was grieving the loss of her breasts and devastated to have expanders instead of immediate reconstruction. “I could speak the truth to Jennifer and talk to her about my inner fears that I hadn’t said to anyone else. Is my body going to look the same? Is my husband going to want to be intimate with me again?”

Jennifer’s words grounded her: This is going to be your worst day. Tomorrow you’ll have healed a little. “She was just great because she’s on the other side of it,” Nikki said. “It’s showing someone there is sunshine after the storm because you’ve walked the storm yourself.”

Resilience and Recovery

As she recovered, Nikki leaned on her stylist instincts for healing. “Once I was past the drains, I made an effort to wear color every day. When I looked in the mirror I didn’t look like a sick person. I might have felt it on the inside, but it made me feel brighter.”

When her body didn’t take well to the expanders, her surgeon moved up her reconstruction surgery before radiation, a decision Nikki was thankful for. Radiation brought raw skin and a painful sore throat, but when her Oncotype test results indicated chemotherapy wasn’t necessary, she was relieved. “My doctor told me ten years ago I would’ve automatically had chemotherapy. It shows how far research has come.”

New Priorities

A year later, Nikki views life differently. Her family now goes on trips instead of exchanging gifts.

She’s also learned to prioritize herself, slow down, rest, and say no without guilt. Six weeks after completing treatment, she joined a wellness retreat in Tuscany, a celebration of life, healing, and friendship. “It was yoga, clean food, exercise, and walking in the Tuscan hills,” she said. “It was lovely sitting around a table with other women, hearing their stories. It made me grateful.”

Living With Gratitude

Today, Nikki is refocusing on her business and considering becoming an ABCD Mentor to give back and support others the way Jennifer supported her. She also recently joined a committee to fundraise for the V Foundation for Cancer Research, an organization started by the late basketball coach and ESPN commentator Jim Valvano.

Even with treatment behind her, Nikki acknowledges survivorship has its own challenges. “I had this bad cough and cold the last week, and you think, does that mean I’ve got lung cancer? That’s the hardest thing to do, live with the fear of recurrence.”

To protect her peace, she focuses on being grateful for making it through the storm with the help of her ABCD Mentor. When asked if she’d encourage others with breast cancer to contact ABCD for emotional support, she doesn’t hesitate, “Yes, 100 percent.”

Nikki was diagnosed in October 2024 with Stage 2 invasive lobular carcinoma that had spread to lymph nodes. She had a bilateral mastectomy, followed by implant reconstruction and 30 rounds of radiation.