‘Will You Marry Me’ – High-School Sweetheart Stuns 27-Year-Old with Marriage Proposal on Final Chemo Session for Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Triple-negative breast cancer means your cancer is not fueled by any of the three main types of receptors — estrogen, progesterone, or the HER2 protein. Because of this, the cancer won’t respond to certain targeted therapies, including hormone therapy or HER2-targeted agents like Herceptin. Chemotherapy is typically the treatment, and there are several options.

If the triple-negative breast cancer patient does not have many symptoms, oral chemotherapy like Xeloda (generic name capecitabine) may be prescribed. If the patient becomes resistant to the oral chemodrug, IV (intravenous) chemotherapy may be offered weekly or bi-weekly.

WATCH: Understanding triple-negative breast cancer

May received treatment at Novant Health Zimmer Cancer Institute in Wilmington, North Carolina. On her final day of scheduled chemotherapy, she was prepared to ring the ceremonial cancer bell.

In a video shared by Storyful, May is seen emotionally walking toward the cancer bell to ring it. As she did, an army of support, including family and friends, cheered her on.

“You did it, girl! You did it! We’re so happy for you!” someone says in the video.

Then, as May continues walking down the hall, she turns a corner to see a red carpet leading to her longtime boyfriend, Imeek Watkins.

As May continues to be showered with praise and adoration, Watkins says his young niece has a special message for her. He then shares his phone with May to see the message.

“Congratulations, Auntie Jellie,” the girl said.

“He’d like to know if you’d marry me?” Watkins’ niece continued.

Watkins then noted that they’ve been together for ten years and have supported each other tirelessly.

“Everything that I’ve gone through, you’ve always had my back. When I left to travel and play ball, you’ve always had my back,” Watkins told May.

“To see you go through this, it just showed me how strong you are. For you to be this young and go through this is just amazing,” Watkins continued.

“So, I just wanted you to know that I love you, and I’d like to know, will you marry me?”

Watkins then drops to one knee and presents May with a ring as family, friends, and hospital workers cheer them on.

May said, “Yes,” and gleefully showed off her new ring.

Understanding Triple-Negative Breast Treatments

Triple-negative breast cancer is one of the most aggressive forms of the disease and accounts for about  20 percent of all breast cancers. The main treatments are chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or participating in clinical trials.

Angelica May had early-stage triple-negative breast cancer. During early-stage disease, the cancer has not spread beyond the breast or the lymph nodes in the armpit.

Early-stage triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) treatments may use a combination of chemotherapy drugs.

For example, a CMF regimen is an abbreviation for combining chemotherapy drugs cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and fluorouracil. AC stands for doxorubicin (Adriamycin) with cyclophosphamide, and ACT just indicates that a taxane drug is added to the regimen. Likewise, TC is an abbreviation for a regimen consisting of Taxotere and cyclophosphamide.

In 2021, the FDA approved the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab for the treatment of early-stage triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is already used to treat other cancers, including melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer. Doctors heralded the FDA’s approval of pembrolizumab as a potentially paradigm-shifting advancement in breast cancer treatment.

For patients with stage 2 or 3 TNBC, adding the immune-boosting medication pembrolizumab to combination chemotherapy before surgery increases chances of living free of breast cancer, explains oncologist Dr. Sylvia Adams, director of the Breast Cancer Center at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center. She was one of several researchers involved with the pembrolizumab trials. “It changes the standard of care and should be discussed with all patients diagnosed with stage 2-3 TNBC,” she adds. “Yes, it’s a game-changer, though there is much more to be learned.”

Immunotherapy Treatments for Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

The immune system works by having the immune system use its white blood cells to attack cells in the body that are abnormal or foreign. Cancer cells can stop the immune system from working like it should because they produce certain proteins that protect the tumor from white blood cells. As a result, the body does not recognize the cancerous tumor as abnormal.

Immunotherapy stops this process by ensuring white blood cells recognize and attack cancer cells.

WATCH: Immunotherapy for Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Immunotherapy drugs like Keytruda (generic name Pembrolizumab) are a form of immunotherapy called a checkpoint inhibitor. Checkpoint inhibitors are a class of immunotherapy drugs specifically targeting proteins found on immune or cancer cells to prevent their binding. The advantage of checkpoint inhibitors in treating cancer is that they don’t kill cancer cells directly, but they stimulate the immune system to find the cancer cells and attack them while hopefully not affecting other surrounding healthy cells.

Checkpoint inhibitors work on the background knowledge that the immune system can protect our bodies by getting rid of any foreign cells that aren’t produced in the body. It sets out to do this by identifying specific proteins (also known as checkpoint proteins) that are only found on normal cells; when it finds them, it binds to this cell to mark it as safe and leaves it be.

However, sometimes cancer cells can trick the immune system by displaying these same proteins, binding to the immune cells, switching them off, and starting to divide and reproduce, which manifests in the onset of cancer.

Nevertheless, checkpoint inhibitors can help by specifically targeting proteins found on normal or cancer cells to prevent this binding and keep the immune cells alert to any foreign cells so that they can find and stop cancer cells.

Known side effects for Keytruda include:

The most common side effects from Keytruda include:

• Feeling tired (fatigue)
• Rash
• Cough and shortness of breath
• Decreased appetite
• Itching
• Low levels of thyroid hormone.
• Nausea and vomiting
• Diarrhea or constipation
• Abdominal pain

Treatment Option for Metastatic Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Patients

The FDA approved Trodelvy for the treatment of metastatic triple-negative breast cancer in women who had already received two previous types of treatment. It’s been found to significantly prolong life and progression-free survival in some women with triple-negative compared to chemotherapy.

WATCH: How Does Trodelvy Wor?

Trodelvy is a type of drug called an antibody-drug conjugate. That means it’s an antibody and drug combined. It works because the anti-cancer drug is attached to an antibody that recognizes cancer cells. When the drug enters the bloodstream, the antibodies deliver the anti-cancer drug directly to the cancer cells by IV infusion. Because the drug goes straight to cancer cells, it has minimal effects on healthy cells. Traditional chemotherapy, on the other hand, doesn’t target cancer cells as strictly. It can damage healthy cells, too. That’s what causes the side effects for which chemo is well known.

That doesn’t mean that Trodelvy is without side effects. About one in ten people who take the drug have severe diarrhea. About half hit very low levels of the type of white blood cell (neutrophils) that help fight bacterial infections.

Trodelvy is approved for people who have not responded to or have stopped responding to two prior chemotherapy treatments. They receive the drug by IV on the first and eighth days of a 21-day cycle. They repeat this cycle for as long as the drug continues to work.

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