Young Mother Finds Lifesaving Breast Cancer Care

Being a young mother, with a toddler and newborn, has its challenges, but being diagnosed with breast cancer on top of it, is a hurdle that they don't give you a step-by-step guide on how to navigate through.

From New Baby To Breast Cancer Diagnosis

In March 2020, Alli Coleman, husband Kyler and their 2-year-old daughter Lanie welcomed new son and brother Hutson. By June, a cancer diagnosis upended their lives.

Just six weeks earlier, Alli had discovered a suspicious lump in her breast. The Lagoda, Indiana, resident and her lactation consultant thought it might be a complication of breastfeeding. But Alli's obstetrician/gynecologist suspected it was a cyst and referred Alli to Madelyn Lefranc, MD, at the Franciscan Health Lafayette East Diagnostic Breast Center. After an ultrasound, Dr. Lefranc, concerned about what she saw in such a young woman, fast-tracked a mammogram and biopsy.

Alli had stage 3 breast cancer.

'I Had To Be There For My Babies'

Once diagnosed with breast cancer, Alli visited Franciscan Physician Network Oncology and Hematology Specialists in Lafayette, and she began what would be a year of aggressive treatment.

"They were fantastic and so optimistic," Alli said. "My time with them changed the way I look at my diagnosis. They trained my brain to react to bad news with a plan of action instead of jumping into panic. That's been tremendously helpful."

No matter how positive a patient is, cancer treatment can be rough, and Alli admits her mindset took some hard hits. Her breast cancer treatment was challenging. From June to October, Alli and her dad made the two-hour round-trip drive to Lafayette every three weeks for her day-long infusion of four hard-hitting chemotherapy medications.

She struggled as the drugs played havoc on her body - hair loss, nausea and full-body joint pain. Many days she didn't want to get out of bed.

"Everything was so dark, but everyone told me I had a good attitude," Alli said. "It was really desperation. I knew I had to get through it. I had to be there for my babies."

Beating Breast Cancer

Along the way, Alli found support and friendships in other patients as well as her nurses.

"Because of COVID, I saw the nurses more than family and friends," Alli said. "We had our own little support group. They really went above and beyond."

In November 2020, Alli had a double mastectomy, followed by 36 radiation treatments. Finally, she completed treatment with eight rounds of chemotherapy targeting any stray cancer cells. After her long cancer journey, on June 3, Kyler and the kids joined Alli as she rang the bell, a tradition that cancer patients do to celebrate the mark of their last treatment.