[00:00:00] Adam Walker: From Susan G. Komen, this is Real Pink, a podcast exploring
[00:00:06] real stories, struggles, and triumphs related to breast cancer. We’re taking the conversation from the doctor’s office to your living room
[00:00:17] When we think about breast cancer, many of us still picture someone much older, but the reality is that young women can and do face this diagnosis, even when breast cancer is the furthest thing from their minds. Today’s guest was just 35 years old when her life changed and she suddenly found herself navigating treatment decisions while raising three young children.
[00:00:38] Amanda Lutricuso’s story is a powerful reminder that you’re never too young to pay attention to your body and to speak up when something is wrong. Cancer may have changed the course of her life. It also changed her perspective on what matters most. Amanda, welcome to the show.
[00:00:55] Amanda Lutricuso: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:56] Adam Walker: Well, that is that- that’s quite the experience.
[00:01:00] Yeah. Cancer at 35, three young children. Three young children is no easy task by itself. Yeah. Add- adding cancer to that is really tough and w- and we’ll certainly get to that. But let’s start with your diagnosis. How did you find out about your cancer, and how quickly did things move after you found out?
[00:01:19] Amanda Lutricuso: Yeah. So I was completely blindsided. I was 35. That was not on my radar at all, and my kids were actually the reason I found it. So they, like typical kids, were running up and down the hallway while I was in the shower, and I was hollering at them to stop. And then I went, “Oh, did I shave my armpits already?”
[00:01:40] And so I reached over like this, and there was that lump all the way up here. And so thank goodness my kids were being ordinary and crazy in that moment because it literally saved my life.
[00:01:52] Adam Walker: Wow. I think every parent has had that, that moment, right? They’re like, where you’re like, the kids are crazy and you’re just trying to…
[00:01:58] And that, but that’s an amazing outcome from that. I’m I’m happy and glad, I should say, that your kids were crazy for you during that moment. So- And you mentioned it wasn’t on your radar. I mean, just w- like, why was it not on your radar? Was it because you were 35, or was it because there was no family history?
[00:02:15] Or like, g- like, g- expound on that a little bit.
[00:02:17] Amanda Lutricuso: All of the above. So there’s no family history, so it wasn’t on my radar anyway. And anything I’d ever seen, it was older women that get breast cancer. You’re looking at grand moms and great aunts and, so I wasn’t even thinking it could happen to me at 35.
[00:02:33] Too young for a mammogram, so you know, like, it’s not even on the doctor’s radar for me to be that young and go through this, and that’s really a scary thing, and that’s why I love to tell my story because it, it happens to young women. And so, yeah, I mean, it was just, it was crazy. And in that moment, my intuition and my gut knew that it was cancer.
[00:02:55] They just, they knew it was bad instantly, even though it was something that was never on my radar.
[00:03:01] Adam Walker: Wow. So let’s walk through how you processed that, right? I mean, like, how did you go from… I mean, you went from y- young mom just trying to keep up with, to now you’re processing a, a diagnosis and having to deal with that emotionally.
[00:03:18] And then how did you deal with it emotionally, and then how quickly did you start treatment?
[00:03:22] Amanda Lutricuso: Yeah, so i- it was really this rollercoaster of emotions, because in that moment, like I said, I just, I knew it was bad. And I found it on a Friday night right before 4th of July. And so-
[00:03:36] Adam Walker: Oh, that’s the worst.
[00:03:37] Amanda Lutricuso: It was, like, the worst timing. Ah. And thankfully had a great relationship with my doctor. And when I called her, she was like, ” first thing Monday, we’re going to get you over for an ultrasound.” Tuesday was 4th of July. And so I spent the entire day over doing imaging, and I had to have a mammogram, so that was first mammogram, first ultrasound.
[00:03:55] And it just felt really surreal in that moment. Like, what is happening here? And then they tell you, “Well, we can’t give a definitive answer, so we’ll have to schedule you for a biopsy.” And we went on family vacation the next morning, on 4th of July. It was supposed to leave Monday, it got postponed to Tuesday morning.
[00:04:15] And that whole time you’re just like, “Well, now what? What’s going to happen?” And so you have all of those emotions that I really worked through those. Cut our vacation short so I could come home for the biopsy. And they’re like, ” if it’s a cyst, we’re going to do this puncture, and you’re going to watch this go down because we’re pulling fluid out right on the screen in front of you.”
[00:04:35] And they did the puncture, and it was solid. And in that moment, I was like, “Oh, my gosh, my whole life is about to change,” right? And you don’t really know what that means in that moment, so again, it still felt surreal. And even going through they call back and they say, “This is the most aggressive, fastest-growing type of cancer.
[00:04:55] You need to start chemotherapy immediately,” that’s a shock. And I just felt like a robot. I was going through these motion- going through the motions of getting things done and calling doctors, but I was completely numb to all of it. I, I could have very practical conversations with the doctors and set up all of these appointments, but it didn’t feel real until I went in and had my port placed.
[00:05:22] And then it was like all of a sudden you get hit with all that fear and I just stood in the shower and cried when I came home because I thought, “Oh, my gosh, this is really happening. What does that look like? Do I make it through the other side of this?” my youngest had just turned six, and my oldest was only 10.
[00:05:40] So You know, there was a lot that I still needed to be around for, and I didn’t know what that looked like. And so those emotions are really hard to process in those moments, and part of it almost felt like a out-of-body experience, if you will. Like you can have these conversations, but it just doesn’t feel real.
[00:06:01] It’s not really happening to me I think is where my mind was.
[00:06:05] Adam Walker: Right. Yeah. Wow, that makes sense. And you mentioned the age of your kids. I mean, at what point did you end up talking to them about it? I mean, like cause I mean, I imagine on vacation you’re sort of struggling, but like I d- I would imagine you probably didn’t mention it then, but when did that start to come up?
[00:06:22] Amanda Lutricuso: Yeah. After I got the phone call from the radiologist that said, ” you need to start chemotherapy. This is definitely cancer.” and so my kids were 6, 8 and 10, and so it was a conversation of if a banana has a bad spot, you cut off that bad spot and the rest of the banana’s still okay.
[00:06:41] And putting it in kid terms. I never used the words cancer. I never used the words chemo. I didn’t want them to hear anything else from anybody else or anywhere else that was going to scare them. So their outlook was everything was going to be okay. I explained that the chemo was going to make me feel very sick, and I might look different, but it’s killing all of the bad stuff that’s inside.
[00:07:07] And they understood that, and they knew that they could come to us with questions. And fun fact, my kids are also homeschooled, so they truly were here for every piece of treatment recovery, the entire journey, and they were amazing through all of it.
[00:07:24] Adam Walker: That is… That, yeah, that’s that, that’s int- I’ve never heard the the fruit bad spot analogy for a kid.
[00:07:31] That, that’s an interesting analogy, I think. I’ll have to think more on that, but I like it. I think yeah that’s… Thank you for sharing that. So yeah, so- You’re, to your point, y- your kids are six, eight, and 10. They’re homeschooled. You’re a mom. I mean, that’s a lot to juggle just right there, and then you’re going through breast cancer.
[00:07:54] Like, how did you balance, like, the duties of a mom and the duty to yourself to, to to get healing and what did that support network look like for you?
[00:08:07] Amanda Lutricuso: Yeah. So I relied heavily on my family. Initially it was yeah, I’m going to feel down, but I’ll be okay and I’ll still be able to function, and I quickly learned that was not the case.
[00:08:19] I did a dose-dense regimen of AC-T, and those first four treatments, they were every other week and they hit me really hard. My body went into shock after the first treatment. And so it was like day one in, it was, okay, I cannot do this by myself. And so luckily my mom lives about 15 minutes away from me, and so she was here every single day when my husband had to leave for work until he got home from work.
[00:08:46] My two younger sisters who would come over, my grandparents live nearby, so everybody was here every single day. And those, those first eight weeks were definitely the hardest. I had times where I couldn’t even lift my head and I could barely talk and, I mean, it was just so much worse than I anticipated it was going to be.
[00:09:10] You try not to read the horror stories online and you read the ones who say, “Oh yeah, I could function, and I was fine,” and you really don’t know where you’re going to fit on that spectrum. If it’s going to be really bad, somewhere in the middle, you’ll be fine. And then when I started the Taxol, that was weekly for 12 weeks, and I didn’t feel good, but I felt much better and I was able to at least function.
[00:09:33] And so that was I think a relief for everyone that, yeah, I needed help on treatment days because I was sitting at treatment, but then I was able to function and go back to just being a mom and doing all the things and I didn’t miss any birthdays or Halloween or Thanksgiving, like Christmas.
[00:09:50] I was able to function for those things.
[00:09:53] Adam Walker: Yeah. Well, I mean I like how you mentioned that, I mean it’s a unique experience for every person and you hope your experience will be on the better side, but you just, you don’t know.
[00:10:03] Amanda Lutricuso: Yeah.
[00:10:03] Adam Walker: And you have to go into it knowing that you don’t know, and I think that’s tough, I would imagine.
[00:10:08] Did… I mean, did you give yourself permission To be scared, to be angry, to be overwhelmed, or were you sort of always in, like, that… I mean, because moms tend to be in, like, the, the, like… Moms are the glue. Like, let’s just be real, right? Like, they’re the glue, and were you always in that, like, glue mode where you had to hold it together?
[00:10:28] Or c- were you able to fall apart?
[00:10:30] Amanda Lutricuso: In front of my kids, I was incredibly strong, and they saw me at my worst points physically and like I said, when you’re sitting out on the couch with a pillow behind your head because you can’t move your head, they saw all that. So they knew how bad I felt, but they also knew how positive I was staying, and we were just reinforcing that this is normal.
[00:10:55] This is what it’s supposed to do. This means that it’s working and I’m still okay. I can… We can still do stories together, or we can still watch movies together. So in front of them, I never, ever broke down even in those lowest moments. And even, I think, in front of my family, I tried to really be as strong as I could, and they knew how bad I felt.
[00:11:17] But They also were going through this too. This isn’t something that I went through alone. They were going through all these emotions and things as well. And so I never went through the anger stage. My mom went through it for me, so I didn’t need to worry about that. But I did process the rest of the emotions, and a lot of it was just stand in the shower and break down for a few minutes or at nighttime when I was just so drained by the end of the day and my husband would be like, “Well it’s going to be okay, and things are fine.”
[00:11:50] And those were my breaking points where I’d be like, “How do you know it’s really going to be fine?” I think that’s when those kind of came out. But, so yes, I did give myself permission, but it was very disciplined.
[00:12:05] Adam Walker: Yeah. Okay. I mean it, a- as I would expect from a lot of moms, right? Like, again- Yeah
[00:12:10] because you’re the glue and that’s that’s a tough position to be in, going through something personal like that. D- I mean, so how did being a mom, like, change or affect your approach to your cancer treatment or even your perspective on moving forward?
[00:12:29] Amanda Lutricuso: Yeah. So as far as treatment I didn’t even think twice about it.
[00:12:33] It was you have to go through chemo. This is aggressive and fast-spreading, and so I didn’t like the alternative, obviously. And so it was like, “Okay, let’s go.” I mean, I didn’t even have time to think about it. It was I have kids to take care of, and I’m not finished living my life. So yeah, let’s move on with treatment.
[00:12:55] And then moving forward, like I said, that first treatment, I went in… my body went into shock, and we didn’t know what that would look like for future treatments. I mean, I still had to sit in that chair 15 more times. In those moments, your life kind of flashes before your eyes a little bit. I just remember feeling so incredibly sick and sitting there and thinking, “I still have dreams to chase.
[00:13:17] There’s so much that I haven’t done yet.” In that moment is definitely a pivotal point in my life that I said, “I’m going to come out on the other side of this, and I’m going to go after every dream there is because what’s the worst that could happen? It’s not going to be as bad as the moment that I’m in right now.”
[00:13:35] And so I really tell that to my kids every single day. “Don’t give up on any dreams. They’re all worth chasing. You never know where life is going to take you.”
[00:13:45] Adam Walker: Man, if that’s not the truth. Yeah, I love that perspective. That’s really great. So I also understand you had flap reconstruction and that’s something- we haven’t talked a lot about on this show. And so can you explain, I mean, in, in simple terms for me, please, what a flap reconstruction involves and what made you choose that over the other options that were available?
[00:14:08] Amanda Lutricuso: Yeah. So basically they did a fat transfer. My babies were all C-sections, and I said, “Yes, you can gladly take this from my stomach and move it for me.”
[00:14:20] And they… It’s a little bit more involved. It’s a longer recovery process. It took almost six months to fully heal from that. They do have to cut through your stomach muscles. They take blood vessels. There has to be blood supply so that the tissue stays where it’s supposed to and is alive.
[00:14:42] And so, yeah it was a 14-hour surgery when I had it done. They do the double mastectomy and reconstruction all at the same time, and then I spent some time in the ICU after that. For me, that was the best decision because the alternative is implants, and I don’t do well with anything foreign in my body.
[00:15:04] I’ve had other surgeries and they… I’ve had screws in my body and my body rejected those, and it’s not supposed to. So it was just one of those things where I’m like, “I don’t want to even take that chance and risk infection or anything like that.” And then the other thing is implants have to be replaced every 10 years, and I was 35, and I’m like, “That’s a lot of surgeries that we’re now looking at that I don’t ever want to do again.”
[00:15:29] And so it just felt like the right choice for me. I would rather go through that longer recovery process and know that it was one surgery and done, versus surgery every 10 years.
[00:15:39] Adam Walker: Oh. Yeah I don’t know that I’ve ever heard that perspective. That’s really interesting, because I mean, if you kind of, if you kind of net out, like, the surgery every 10 years from 35 on, you could actually have more recovery there than than the long- Exactly
[00:15:51] potentially. Yeah, that’s really interesting. Okay. Well, well, la- last question Amanda. What would you say to a young woman that’s thinking to herself, “I’m too young for breast cancer. I don’t need to worry about it yet. That’s a future problem”?
[00:16:07] Amanda Lutricuso: I would say you are 110% wrong because I was that person.
[00:16:12] I had no idea, and it doesn’t discriminate. It can happen to anybody at any age. Triple negative breast cancer specifically does target young women, and nine out of 10 times, you’re too young for a mammogram, so you need to be your own self-advocate. If something doesn’t feel right, you need to speak up, get it checked.
[00:16:29] The worst that’s going to happen is they’re going to say, “It’s a cyst. It’s nothing to worry about. You’re fine. Go home.” If it does end up being cancer, you’ll catch it early enough to go through treatment and live a long, great life. So absolutely, it’s so easy to just check yourself. Just do it.
[00:16:46] Adam Walker: Yeah. It, that’s it’s worth it.
[00:16:48] It’s worth it, for sure. Well, Amanda, I, I appreciate you coming on the show, sharing your story. I mean, I, the I don’t know, the, I guess the bravery of just kind of going through that as a young mom and sort of holding it all together, I mean it’s You’re doing great and you did great and I really appreciate you just kind of sharing all that with us.
[00:17:09] I think it’s so important for our audience to hear.
[00:17:12] Amanda Lutricuso: Thank you, Adam. Thank you so much for having me on.
[00:17:16] Adam Walker: And to our audience, to answer the question of what’s next for breast cancer patients, Susan G. Komen is proud to present the Breast Cancer Breakthrough Series, a virtual sharable educational series in partnership with industry experts, scientists from academic institutions, and patient advocates who directly speak to recent clinical research findings and new treatments.
[00:17:38] This series focuses on the new science and technologies that are close to becoming available to patients. Thank you to Lilly for their support of the Breast Cancer Breakthrough Series.
[00:17:51] Thanks for listening to Real Pink, a weekly podcast by Susan G. Komen. For more episodes, visit realpink.komen.org, and for more on breast cancer, visit komen.org.
[00:18:00] Make sure to check out @susangkomen on social media. I’m your host, Adam. You can find me on Twitter @ajwalker, or on my blog, adamjwalker.com.