Hope Diekman

Hi everyone, I’m setting this up for my sister Hope who was originally diagnosed with stage 2A triple negative breast cancer in 10/2020. She received 11 rounds of chemotherapy, had lumpectomy surgery and 19 photon beam radiation treatments followed by oral chemotherapy Xeloda.

While on her 3rd round of oral chemotherapy she had a reoccurrence in her lymph nodes in 9/2021. The biopsy of her lymph nodes caused cellulitis infection to occur in the right breast which couldn’t be resolved quick enough so in 10/2021 she had a right breast mastectomy with 14 lymph nodes removed of which 3 were positive for cancer. She began a treatment to include Keytruda immunotherapy infusions every 3 weeks. She also completed 15 proton beam radiation treatments.

After 3 treatments of Keytruda, in 2/2022 it was discovered that the cancer had metastasized to her lungs. She has innumerable nodules. Upon biopsy of her lungs it was discovered that her cancer was high grade neuroendocrine small cell carcinoma but originated from her breast, not triple negative breast cancer. Her previous pathology slides from biopsies were reviewed and they too showed small cell carcinoma. This is treated a lot differently than triple negative breast cancer. She received chemotherapy of Carboplatin/Etoposide and Durvalumab immunotherapy three days in a row, every 3 weeks for 3 courses and had a PET/CT which showed the cancerous nodules had continued to grow in size and number. Chemotherapy has changed to Lurbinectedin infusions once every 3 weeks. After 2 infusions they will check to see if the tumors have gotten smaller or larger.

Hope has also gotten another opinion from Dr. Aman Chauhan at the Markey Cancer Center in Lexington, Kentucky and if the Lurbinectedin doesn’t work he has some immunotherapy clinical trials that she can participate in.

July 1, 2022 a brain MRI detected 4 brain metastases in Hope’s brain and radiation was started quickly. At first it was targeted to the 4 tumors but was quickly changed to full brain radiation. She was hospitalized immediately after the brain metastases diagnosis for 3 days and again after radiation began for another 3 days as she got very, very sick from radiation side effects (brain inflammation causing extreme headaches, nausea & vomiting) and needed intense steroid use. She completed a total of 16 brain radiation sessions. She started Ipilimumab (Yervoy) and Nivolumab (Opdivo) immunotherapy infusions on 7/26/22. This is given every 3 weeks. Unfortunately when brain metastases are present almost all clinical trials are not available anymore.

I started this CaringBridge so that she can communicate details of her care and progress in an efficient way. It’s also a place where you can offer your messages of support and encouragement.

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.