HER2 Positive Breast Cancer: 60 Real Stories
60 stories match breast cancer and HER2 positive. 57 of them mention chemotherapy.
Stage IV HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Paul’s Patient Story
Paul Forgette was 68 when arthritis-related preoperative blood work unexpectedly revealed low-grade prostate cancer that only needed observation. Soon after, he bumped his chest and felt a lump. A mammogram first suggested male breast cancer, and further PET…
Read this storyStage II HR-Positive Breast Cancer: Jennifer’s Survivor Story
Jennifer Njathi’s breast cancer was found after her delayed 40th-birthday mammogram led to extra imaging in early 2023. At first, she thought the callback was routine for a first mammogram. When the repeat screening focused on one breast and the lymph nodes…
Read this storyStage IV HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Elissa’s Patient Story
Elissa was 34 and only a few months postpartum when numbness in her feet began interfering with daily life. She could not keep shoes on comfortably and could barely play tennis for 20 to 30 minutes. Because she had recently given birth, the symptoms were easy…
Read this storyStage IV HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Kathleen’s Patient Story
Kathleen McEvoy-Schufreider was first diagnosed in 2011 with early-stage HER2-positive, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. She joined a clinical trial and received 16 weeks of paclitaxel with trastuzumab. After surgery, she received 4 doses of AC…
Read this storyStage IV HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Jennifer’s Survivor Story
Jennifer Masters was 63 when she described the long road through Stage IV HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer. She first noticed a lump in her left breast in February 2016 but waited several months before seeing a doctor. After a diagnosis of HER2-positive…
Read this storyStage IV HR-Positive Invasive Ductal Carcinoma: Samantha’s Patient Story
Samantha was 22 when a breast lump, initially treated as an infection, was confirmed as cancer. Further imaging found a small rib lesion that shrank with chemotherapy, showing that the disease had already spread and making the diagnosis stage 4. She received…
Read this storyStage III HR-Positive Breast Cancer: Christine’s Survivor Story
Christine was 31 when she noticed a visible divot and a large, hard, immovable lump in her breast. Imaging and biopsy confirmed stage 3 triple-positive breast cancer. MRI measured the tumor at nearly 8 cm and showed at least 2 involved lymph nodes, with 4…
Read this storyStage IV HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Anne’s Patient Story
Anne Keane was diagnosed in 2016 after pain in her sternum led to testing that found HER2-positive breast cancer already involving her bones and liver. She was a young mother, and learning that the disease was metastatic and incurable was devastating. At 42…
Read this storyStage IV HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Nina’s Survivor Story
Nina was 34 when she was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer. Her first sign was a hard strip under her left armpit, not the small pea-like lump she had been told to watch for. At first, she was reassured because she was young, had dense breast…
Read this storyHR-Positive Breast Cancer: Anna’s Survivor Story
Anna Rathkopf was 37 when she found a lump in her breast on her birthday. She was living in Brooklyn with her husband and their 2.5-year-old son, and they had just started thinking about a second child. A prior doctor had told her she did not need a mammogram…
Read this storyHR-Positive Breast Cancer: Anna’s Survivor Story
Anna found a breast lump on her 37th birthday. Her gynecologist initially did not consider it urgent, but Anna pushed for further testing. Because she had dense breast tissue, ultrasound was important in identifying the tumor, and a biopsy confirmed…
Read this storyHER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Irasema’s Survivor Story
In September 2020, several years after treatment for stomach cancer, Irasema Partida Chavez learned that she also had breast cancer. Routine imaging showed an abnormality in her right breast. A mammogram and biopsy confirmed cancer, and she was told that…
Read this storyStage I HR-Positive Breast Cancer: Allison’s Survivor Story
Allison Tierney is an oncology dietitian and breast cancer survivor who shared her experience with cold capping during treatment for Stage IA triple-positive breast cancer. The video focused less on diagnosis and more on how she managed chemotherapy-related…
Read this storyStage II HR-Positive Invasive Ductal Carcinoma: Allison’s Patient Story
Allison Tierney, an oncology dietitian in Wisconsin, found a breast lump shortly after finishing breastfeeding her 2nd child. Because she was only 10 days postpartum from nursing, the lump could have been a clogged duct, but it continued to worry her. Imaging…
Read this storyStage II HR-Positive Invasive Ductal Carcinoma: Dorian’s Survivor Story
Dorian de Salvo was active, working out 5 to 6 times a week, when she began gaining weight without a clear reason. One doctor dismissed her concerns, but another ran blood work that suggested something could be wrong. While traveling for work, Dorian found a…
Read this storyStage IV HER2-Positive Inflammatory Breast Cancer: Olivia’s Survivor Story
Olivia Franz was 27 and breastfeeding her 4-month-old son when she noticed a painless lump in her left breast in mid-October 2020. An initial ultrasound suggested mastitis, but the lump and swelling grew during a week of antibiotics. A second ultrasound and…
Read this storyStage III HER2-Positive Inflammatory Breast Cancer: Nikki’s Patient Story
Nikki first noticed sharp pain around her right nipple in August 2022. Because there was no lump and she had been told that cancer usually did not hurt, she attributed it to menopause. By late November, her nipple had become completely inverted. A biopsy and…
Read this storyStage IV HR-Positive Breast Cancer: Abigail’s Patient Story
Abigail Myers was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2014, just over a year after the birth of her son. Testing showed triple-positive disease, with estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 receptors. Her initial treatment included a double mastectomy, radiation…
Read this storyStage II HER2-Positive Invasive Ductal Carcinoma: Lanie’s Patient Story
Lanie Jones had already survived adrenal carcinoma as a toddler when she found a breast lump in July 2008, shortly before starting nursing school. At first, she delayed the ultrasound because she was 24 and could not imagine having cancer again. When the lump…
Read this storyStage II HR-Positive Breast Cancer: Becki’s Patient Story
Becki, 43, sought a second opinion after feeling that her previous doctor had not given her enough information. Mammogram, ultrasound, and biopsy confirmed Stage II triple-positive breast cancer: ER-positive, PR-positive, and HER2-positive. The diagnosis was…
Read this storyHER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Feyama’s Survivor Story
Feyama Ashby, a quality and compliance coordinator in MD Anderson’s diagnostic labs, noticed pain in her sternum that extended into her right breast. She initially thought she had pulled a muscle while working out, but the timing lined up with her annual…
Read this storyHER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Tamara’s Patient Story
Tamara was 30, recently returned from the United States, and had just given birth when she noticed a small lump in her armpit during breastfeeding. She was first reassured that it was probably a lactation-related cyst, but because her mother had died of…
Read this storyStage II HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: María’s Survivor Story
María Ángeles found a small lump in her armpit while showering, just months after a divorce and during a stressful period of rebuilding her life. She had also had fever and some weight loss, but the lump was the sign that pushed her to see her gynecologist. A…
Read this storyStage IV HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Loli’s Patient Story
Loli was 63 when she shared the story of having breast cancer 3 times. About 4 years earlier, she felt a hard area in her breast, like mastitis, and quickly saw her gynecologist. An urgent ultrasound and biopsy led to a HER2-positive breast cancer diagnosis…
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