177. Living with MBC and Experiencing the Realities of Progression with Amy Parliaman, Claudia Gonzalez, and Amanda Raffenaud

Love the podcast? Send us a text!About the presenters: Amanda RaffenaudAmanda has been living with state 4 metastatic breast cancer since 2018. Not only was she completely shocked to be diagnosed with breast cancer, de novo, at the age of 38, but she was shocked to learn it had spread to dozens of bones in her body. She had no early stage breast cancer diagnosis and was even under the care of a breast surgeon for four years prior to her metastatic diagnosis. Since diagnosis, she has been in active treatment for stage 4 cancer, undergoing countless bone infusions, multiple surgeries, chemotherapy lines, and monthly oncology visits. She is on her 8th line of treatment in 3 years to help stop the growth and spread of cancer.  Currently she has mets to both breasts, lungs, liver, bones, and brain.Amy ParliamanAmy Ellen Parliman lives life by faith and enjoys spreading kindness. She has a passion for serving her community thru her career in healthcare. 26 years ago, she went to school to become a radiology technologist. She enjoys performing diagnostic imaging on her patients, she prides herself in safe and quality care. About 12 years ago she became a leader in her field and has moved into a leadership role in the Diagnostic Imaging Department.On January 29, 2014 Amy became a Cancer patient.  She underwent treatment for stage III breast cancer during 2014. She lived with NED until January 29, 2019 then she was told she had MBC. She is currently on her first line treatment. If the opportunity presents, she will share her various experiences of living after diagnosis.Claudia GonzalezClaudia was born in Colombia, South America where she grew up surrounded by her parents, brother, sister, and many close-knit extended family members, including more than 20 aunts and uncles and 100 cousins. Looking for new opportunities, Claudia, her parents, and siblings made the United States their home in 1980. Moving to a new country, learning a new language, and leaving family and friends was a challenge for Claudia.  In March of 2018, Claudia faced a bigger life challenge. She was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer. A few weeks after the original diagnosis and after numerous tests she was informed the cancer cells had traveled to her bones and stage IV was added to her diagnosis. Claudia started her journey to treat this aggressive type of cancer in April 2018. Treatment included aggressive chemotherapy followed by a right mastectomy, one intense radiation to the lower vertebra, radiations to right chest and lymph nodes, and oral chemo that ended in September 2019. From October of 2019 to June of 2021 Claudia had - No Evidence of Disease (NED). A mammogram of her left breast done on June 8th, 2021, revealed two lumps. That same day a biopsy was completed and a few days later it was confirmed both tumors were again Tripple Negative Breast Cancer. The fear of recurrence unfortunately had become a reality for Claudia. Support the showListener FeedbackIf this episode resonated with you, we invite you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.You can also click the link in the show notes that says "Love this episode? Send us a text" to share feedback.Messages are completely anonymous.If you would like us to follow up directly, please include your email address in your message so we can respond.Latest News: Join our Mailing List - New content drops every Monday! Discover FREE programs, support groups, and resources from SurvivingBReastCancer.org! Become a Breast Cancer Conversations+ Member! Sign Up Now. Enjoying our content? Please consider supporting our work.