Living Fully After Loss
- Film icon John Travolta, 70, took Ella Travolta, 24, on a special father-daughter trip to the Paris Olympics. The avid aviator shared a montage of snaps in a black beret, which Ella later wore on some of their outings in the City of Lights, which included taking in some gymnastics, tennis and volleyball competitions seated in the stands.
- After the loss of their beloved Kelly Preston, Travolta’s wife and Ella’s mother, who died from a private breast cancer journey in 2020 at 57 years old, they have chosen to keep living a full life as a family with Ben Travolta, 13. Many say that nothing honors a lost loved one more than to continue pursuing happiness, and it is perfectly normal to continue grieving while doing so.
- If you or a loved one is faced with an advanced stage breast cancer diagnosis, it is important to know that there is new hope with treatment advances in recent years for metastatic breast cancer, so it’s important not to lose hope.
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“Hey, I’m on my way to the Olympics. We’re flying to Paris. Eight hours. And we’ll see you when we get to Paris!” a smiling Travolta shared to the camera.
In his caption for the reel, he wrote: “This was our father daughter trip to Paris for the Olympics!”
While on the plane, the Grease star scoped out a magazine feature of his daughter while seated at a café-style table with fresh orange flowers as the sun set through the oval windows.
A vintage lithograph with “Airline Lounge Cocktails” scrolled across hung on the wall behind him.
From Paris, Travolta also added various shots of the two in the Olympic stands sitting among all the rest of the fans.
“Thank you for sharing. This was really fun. Looked incredible,” Say Anything star Ione Skye wrote in the comments.
Actress Rita Wilson, wife of Tom Hanks, simply wrote, “Beautiful!”
A fan added: “I love it that you are just ‘Dad’ to your lovely daughter and had such a wonderful experience together. Kudos!”
After the loss of their beloved Kelly Preston, Travolta’s wife and Ella’s mother, who died from a private breast cancer journey in 2020 at 57 years old, they have admirably chosen to keep living a full life as a family.
Ella has a younger brother Ben, 13. Their older brother Jett tragically died in 2009 during an epileptic seizure at age 16.
After loss, many say that nothing honors a loved one more than to continue pursuing happiness, and it is perfectly normal to continue grieving while doing so.
John Travolta and Kelly Preston’s Love Story
John Travolta and Kelly Preston met in 1988, when they worked on The Experts together, and married in 1991. He announced the tragic news of his wife’s passing on Instagram with a beautiful tribute and picture of Preston.
“It is with a very heavy heart that I inform you that my beautiful wife Kelly has lost her two-year battle with breast cancer,” he wrote. “She fought a courageous fight with the love and support of so many.”
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Travolta apologized in advance for his absence, as he would be taking care of his children who just lost their mother. “But please know that I will feel your outpouring of love in the weeks and months ahead as we heal.”
Healing Through Grief
Travolta emphasized the need for space during his grieving process, which he had every right to request. Understandably, losing a loved one can cause immeasurable pain and allowing yourself the time and space to mourn is crucial in order to be able to slowly begin picking up the pieces. Of course, therapy can go a long way in this healing process.
Again, those we have lost would not want us to stop living life, so the best gift we can give to the fallen loved ones we cherish is to keep experiencing life’s beautiful moments in their honor.
In an earlier interview with SurvivorNet, Camila Legaspi shared her own advice on grief after her mother died of breast cancer. For her, therapy made all the difference.
Regaining Your Sense of Self After Losing Someone to Breast Cancer
“Therapy saved my life,” says Legaspi. “I was dealing with some really intense anxiety and depression at that point. It just changed my life, because I was so drained by all the negativity that was going on. Going to a therapist helped me realize that there was still so much out there for me, that I still had my family, that I still had my siblings.”
“When you lose someone, it’s really, really, really hard,” Legaspi added. “I’m so happy that I talked to my therapist. Keep your chin up, and it’s going to be OK. No matter what happens, it’s going to be OK.”
Losing a Spouse to Cancer
John Duberstein lost his wife, writer Nina Riggs, to metastatic triple negative breast cancer. He says that while he was watching her suffer from the disease, he couldn’t help but wish things could go back to normal, but Nina had already embraced her new normal. When it’s time to face passing on , acceptance can be monumental.
“Nina really wanted things to go back to normal, whatever that meant,” John previously shared with SurvivorNet. “She was not for that. She wanted to embrace the existence that she had, even before she knew she was going to die imminently. I did not want to talk about what was going to happen with me after Nina died. Nina is the one that really brought it up, she brought it up a number of times.”
“She wanted to make sure that I knew that it was OK – she really wanted me to have another relationship after she was gone.”
RELATED: The Toughest Conversations Losing a Spouse to Cancer
John said that even with the pain of losing Nina, and even though he didn’t want to talk about it at the time, he’s so glad that his wife started those uncomfortable conversations. “In retrospect, I can’t even explain how glad I am that I had that,” John added.
Travolta was with his wife in Clearwater, Fla. when she died. The pain from losing a loved one never goes away, but cherishing life’s moments is a way to continue celebrating life, even through loss.
Advances in Metastatic Breast Cancer Treatments Offer New Hope
If you or your loved one is facing an advanced stage breast cancer diagnosis, it is important to know how far treatment has come in recent years. 2022 was an amazing year for advancements in metastatic breast cancer treatment — and women now have some additional options.
Several promising clinical trials and new drug approvals have brought new treatment possibilities to women with triple negative or HER2-positive breast cancer.
Dr. Bora Lim, a breast medical oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, broke down some of these exciting advances in treatment during a previous conversation with SurvivorNet.
Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
While we do not know which type of breast cancer Kelly Preston had, triple-negative breast cancer is one of the hardest breast cancers to treat. That’s because some of the most effective breast cancer treatments, targeted therapies, are for HER2-positive or hormone-receptor-positive cancers. Those medications don’t help people with triple-negative breast cancer. So, advancements in the treatment of this type of cancer are especially exciting.
Related: Understanding Gene Mutations in Your Metastatic Breast Cancer is Crucial to Your Treatment
Antibody-Drug Conjugates in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
In April 2022, the FDA approved sacituzumab govitecan-hziy (Trodelvy) for people with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer who had already had two prior treatments. Trodelvy is an antibody-drug conjugate. An anti-cancer drug is attached to an antibody that recognizes cancer cells. People receive the drug by IV. When it enters the bloodstream, the antibodies travel straight to the cancer cells and deliver the anti-cancer drug directly to them. In the ASCENT trial, Trodelvy doubled survival time over chemotherapy.
Related: In Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, New Drug Trodelvy Extends Life
“The ASCENT trial was a huge success,” Dr. Lim said. “Something that we haven’t seen in triple-negative breast cancer for a long time.”
Immunotherapy in Triple Negative-Breast Cancer
For years, researchers have tried to find a way to leverage the promise of immunotherapy in breast cancer.
“Immunotherapy has been a new and exciting treatment in lung cancer, melanoma, head and neck cancers, but breast cancer wouldn’t respond to immunotherapy, but that’s changing now,” Dr. Lim added.
Learning about treatment for triple-negative breast cancer.
Several studies in the past year have shown the promise of immunotherapy in triple negative breast cancers that express a protein called PD-L1. PD-L1 on the surface of tumor cells communicates with PD-1 on the surface of immune T cells to convince the immune system not to fight the cancer. Drugs that block PD-1 or PD-L1 help the immune system see the cancer for the threat that it is and launch an attack.
Early 2022, the FDA approved PD-L1 blocker atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in combination with chemotherapy for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer that expresses PD-1. The drug combo is for people whose cancer is metastatic or locally advanced and inoperable. More recent studies show that a similar drug, PD-1 blocker pembrolizumab (Keytruda), may also extend survival in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.
HER2-Positive Breast Cancers
HER2-positive breast tumors express a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 that helps the cancer grow. Targeted drugs, such as Herceptin, can prevent the protein from further fueling the cancer. But, the cancer still advances in some people, and more treatment options are needed.
Kinase Inhibitors in HER2-Postive Brain Metastases
HER2-positive breast cancer commonly metastasizes to the brain. But, women who have brain metastases usually aren’t eligible for clinical trials. New studies, however, show that drugs called kinase inhibitors, tucatinib and neratinib, can cross the blood-brain barrier and extend the lives of women whose cancer has spread to the brain.
“This is huge,” Dr. Lim said. “These people were typically excluded from clinical trials, but the tucatinib + Herceptin + xeloda trial proved that they could be treated. This is great news for the patient.”
Antibody-Drug Conjugates in HER2-Positive Breast Cancer
The FDA approved an antibody-drug conjugate for HER2-positive breast cancer in the past year, too. This drug, fam-trastuzumab – deruxtecan-nxki (ENHERTU), attaches trastuzumab (Herceptin) to an antibody that delivers the drug directly to the cancer cell.
Related: Hopeful News for Breast Cancer: New Drug Combination to Extend Survival Time
“These drugs release chemotherapy to HER2+ cells and some of the neighboring cells, which are not HER2+ but can contribute to the cancer progression, and they have shown great activity against the cancer,” Dr. Lim explained.
In fact, antibody-drug conjugates aren’t only useful in breast cancer, Dr. Lim continued, “The antibody-drug conjugate is going to be the next big thing coming up not only in breast cancer but all of the cancer drugs.”
Contributing by SurvivorNet staff.
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