Triple-negative breast cancer, or TNBC, is one of the more aggressive kinds of breast cancer. It’s also harder to treat since it does not respond to hormone therapy. I was immediately concerned I wasn’t going to make it. I found myself wondering, What are my odds and what about my baby? Usually, you have scans to see if the cancer has spread to your lymph nodes, but that wasn’t an option for me because I was pregnant. All I had were ultrasounds (initially to diagnose the cancer, then to check on my baby), and I remember my surgeon examining my armpit and saying it didn’t feel like anything had spread. I just had to have faith. I had to trust my doctors and trust my team.
The whole family is going to fight for our lives.
Thankfully, the kind of chemo my doctors recommended for my triple-negative breast cancer was fine to have during pregnancy, which was a blessing. I started it at 13 weeks, once I was in my second trimester and it was safe.
On my first day of chemo, my mom, dad, sister, and husband were all there. My dad, who is diabetic, had recently cut his foot and gotten an infection. He had an appointment scheduled to get it checked out but was focused on showing up for me at my first treatment. But he went into septic shock in the waiting room and ultimately had to have his leg amputated. It was like all the health crises in my family happened at the same time. Not only did it strengthen the bond between me and my father, but it also put life into perspective for me—his fight became my focus too. It was like, Okay, the whole family is going to fight for our lives.
It’s so hard not to think about the future, especially when you’re pregnant and you want to imagine your family growing. But I learned to take things one day at a time. I also tried to find small moments of joy. Even though going through chemo was crappy, I met people at my appointments who changed my life and my perspective on things.
On December 19, 2019, I had a lumpectomy. They called with my pathology report on Christmas Eve, and said they tested the tissues they removed, and there were no cancer cells left. The chemo had Visitingworked. This is called a pathologic complete response, or pCR. It was the best outcome I could have hoped for!
I’m focused on giving others the advice I wish I had so they know there’s life after cancer.
My water broke on New Year’s Eve of 2020, when I was 32 weeks pregnant, and while I wasn’t in active labor, I was hospitalized for two weeks in case it started. I was induced on January 10, 2020, not long before COVID was declared a pandemic. My baby was in the hospital for a month because he was preterm and needed to learn how to suck, swallow, and breathe. And even though the chemo worked, I did radiation, which my surgeon recommended as essentially an insurance policy. Pretty much as soon as my baby could go home and I was done with treatments, everything shut down due to the pandemic.
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