“This was the one thing we could control” — A Young Mother Diagnosed with Triple Negative Cancer Decides to Have Her Wedding Safely Amidst Treatment and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cespedes had a personal connection to someone at the Dubin Breast Center of the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai so she decided to go there for a second opinion and to know what stage she is in.

Once the tests came back, she found out that her cancer spread to her lymph nodes in her armpit, making her a stage 3 breast cancer patient. Cespedes' physician told her that her cancer was triple negative breast cancer, meaning it is a more aggressive type of cancer. Her main treatment option was chemotherapy and her tumor was found to be local.

Cespedes started her chemotherapy infusions April 17th and was fearful of going into the cancer centers with COVID-19 but knew that these infusions were crucial. The chemotherapy is necessary to reduce her mass and allow for physicians to be able to feasibly remove whatever is left through surgery.

As all of this was happening, Cespedes has been slowly moving her things into a home that she will share with her fiancé while also dealing with her Type 1 diabetes. She discussed how her wedding was on her mind, wondering if they would be able to have the wedding on August 1, like they initially hoped.

Cespedes and her fiancé decided to get married on May 25th instead since their wedding officiant was moving away. Cespedes’ 13 year old daughter was a part of the ceremony.

"This was the one thing we could control," Cespedes told TODAY. "We’re making the best of what we have. We're just really focused on laughter, happiness and joy in the midst of a pandemic and my cancer treatment.” Their families joined in person, sitting in cars and watching the ceremony, or via Zoom and Facebook Live.

Triple Negative Breast Cancer

 

What is Triple Negative Breast Cancer? 

Triple negative breast cancer is one of the most aggressive forms of the disease and accounts for about 20 percent of all breast cancers. It's called triple negative because it does not have any of the main drivers of breast cancerthe estrogen receptor, the progesterone receptor, and the HER2 receptorand consequently doesn't respond to treatments that target them.

Treatment Options

If a patient has metastatic triple negative breast cancer, the usual first line of therapy is chemotherapy. There are different chemotherapy options depending on how sick someone is with their disease. Triple negative breast cancer is usually responsive to chemotherapy.

In certain instances, a patient will become resistant to their first line of therapy and will have to switch to another chemotherapy. There are many different chemotherapies that are used for triple negative breast cancer. There are also different clinical trials that may be available.

RELATED: Chemo for Triple Negative Breast Cancer

There has also been advancements with immunotherapy that can be used alongside chemotherapy for triple negative cancer patients. It was thought for a while that breast cancers do not generally respond well to immunotherapy but in late 2018, the Food and Drug Administration issued the first ever approval for an immunotherapy treatment for some patients with breast cancer.

In a study, it was shown that an immunotherapy for the first time could extend the lives of patients with a really dangerous form of breast cancer.  In a worldwide study of over 900 women, patients given immunotherapy plus chemotherapy lived 9 1/2 months longer than those given chemotherapy alone. Leading experts in breast cancer said doctors could now employ immunotherapy for triple negative breast cancer treatment alongside the routine chemotherapy.

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