Tiffany Kinkead was first diagnosed with stage 1 triple-positive breast cancer after finding a lump in her breast doing a self-exam. At the time, Tiffany, a pediatric nurse, remembered doctors assuring her that it was probably nothing—she was young and healthy. They were just ruling out the worst.
But after an ultrasound, mammogram, and biopsy, Tiffany got very different news.
“When the doctor said, ‘I’m sorry to tell you this, but it’s breast cancer,’” I was like, ‘What do you mean?’” Tiffany remembered. “I looked over and my mom was crying, and I thought, Why is she crying? This isn’t real. I left the office with all these cards and papers and was just thinking, Whose life is this? This is crazy.”
At just 26 years old, she and her husband, Kurt, were settling into newlywed life and a new house, excitedly making plans for their future together.
“I was very much a newlywed,” Tiffany said. “I felt so sad for my husband. Having to call him at work and tell him the bad news was awful. I was like, ‘I’m so sorry. Remember when we said those vows to be together in sickness and in health.’”
Tiffany underwent six rounds of chemotherapy, a year of Herceptin infusions, and a double mastectomy with reconstruction.
As a self-described nurturer who “takes care of everybody but myself,” Tiffany said treatment forced her to have to get used to being less independent and learn to rest. And as a Black woman, losing her hair was especially difficult.
“I had just gone through a whole journey with my hair,” she said. “I used to use relaxer, and I had just grown the relaxer out. I knew it was just hair and would grow back, but it was part of me.”
Tiffany approached her diagnosis with focus.
“Once we had a plan, we stuck to it, I counted down, I checked things off, and we got it done,” she said. “Even though I lost my hair, and I stopped working, I got through it and felt like I had checked that box off and was done.”
Because she was young and recently married, Tiffany’s oncologist broached the subject of fertility early on after she was diagnosed. Tiffany and her husband knew they wanted children but weren’t yet ready to make decisions.
About three years after treatment, Tiffany and Kurt were ready to try. Tiffany paused hormone therapy, got pregnant, and gave birth to her oldest daughter, who is disabled. A few years later, in late 2017, she gave birth to her younger daughter.
“I was good that whole period off of Tamoxifen—no issues, no symptoms of breast cancer,” she said. “I was back to being my normal self. I was probably even healthier because I was so focused on trying to make sure my body was in optimal state and just doing everything I could to just try to stay away from cancer for the rest of my life.”
In early 2018, just after her younger daughter was born, everyone in the family came down with some sort of respiratory illness.
“Everybody got sick. We were sick for a while because I remember even the baby got sick and I was like, ‘Lord, this is just a mess.’ But everybody else eventually got better and I didn’t,” she said. “The nurse in me told me something was wrong. It’s not normal to be taking all these things and not improving.”
For weeks, Tiffany visited the doctor and tried various treatments and a new inhaler, but she only continued to feel worse. When she asked her doctor about a chest X-ray on her third visit, she was flatly denied and told to be patient. Tiffany’s gut told her something was really wrong, and she needed to advocate for herself.
So, she picked up the phone and called her allergist, who was willing to order the X-ray. When that showed concerning fluid in her lungs, he referred her to a pulmonologist, who ordered a biopsy. By that time, Tiffany had started experiencing severe pain in her back.
With her months-old baby at the doctor’s office with her, Tiffany learned that her breast cancer had metastasized to her lungs.
“Instead of going into a fog like the first time, I went straight into attack mode. I thought, I’ve done this before. I can do this again,” she said. “I remember I never cried. I just looked over at my baby and knew I had to figure out how I was going to deal with this because I’ve got kids now.”
Eventually, Tiffany learned that she had metastases not only in her lungs, but in her bones (hence the back pain) and her liver. Metastatic breast cancer can be treated but not cured.
“When I had my double mastectomy, they had clear margins, but those HER2 cells—they’re very tricky,” Tiffany said. “They say they can lay dormant for years and then all of a sudden they’re back.”
Since that diagnosis in 2018, she has had several lines of treatment, chemotherapy, Gamma Knife radiosurgery when the cancer progressed to her brain, and so many other setbacks. Her and her husband had to sell their dream house, move to be closer to family, and figure out how to live on one income.
“The hardest part of this whole metastatic journey is definitely the fact that I have to do all this with my kids,” she said. “They don’t have any memory of me without cancer. They only know mommy being sick and mommy having to go to the doctor. I try not to think about my mortality and not knowing how many years I have with them but it’s in the back of my mind. I try to make sure I’m always making memories with them.”
Today, she’s being treated with Enhertu, an antibody-drug conjugate that was only first approved in 2019. She was one of the first patients at her cancer center to go on it.
In spite of her metastatic diagnosis and many challenges along the way, Tiffany is able to stay positive and present. Although she misses her career as a nurse, she is grateful for the time she’s able to devote to her daughters and the connections she’s made with others as a patient advocate.
“Metastatic breast cancer has completely changed my outlook on life,” she said. “It’s truly a blessing every day that we’re here, and I want to feel like I’m fulfilling some sort of purpose. It’s a different purpose than I envisioned for my life, but I’m trying to find the positivity in everything. I want people to see that I’m out here living. I’m going through some things, but I’m living. I’m being a mom, I’m being a wife, I’m having a good time.”
Tiffany is also grateful that research has kept her alive since 2018 and that she’s been on multiple therapies that were approved only in the last five to 10 years.
“Breast cancer research has come so far. The proof is in the pudding: People are living longer after being diagnosed with MBC,” she said. “It’s a testament to research that I’ve been able to get on all these new treatments for years and years and do well on them. At this point, for a lot of us, it’s like treating a chronic disease.”
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