Battling Triple Negative Cancer…And Defeating the Enemy!

In November 2011, 37-year-old Leecy Fink, a wife, mother of five, and owner of a bridal shop, felt a lump in her left breast. Tests revealed triple negative breast cancer. One of the most aggressive types. 

Leecy said, “I really wasn’t surprised I had breast cancer. It wasn't really shocking to me.  And I knew exactly which oncologist I wanted.”
Retired oncologist, Dr. Dwight Oldham.

“Triple negative breast cancer with multiple positive nodes and a large primary, her cure rate at the beginning might have been 50% or maybe a little less than that,” said Dr. Oldham. 

Leecy’s husband, Gary, was hopeful at first. Triple negative breast cancer can respond well to treatment. But for two years he watched his wife endure grueling rounds of chemo, a double mastectomy and radiation. All the while grieving her mother who died from her own battle with cancer.

Gary said, “The worst time, the worst thing for me was seeing my wife in pain. And you can't do anything about it.” 

“The first thing you think is you’re not going to make it,” said Leecy. “So, my prayer life and my spiritual life was about God preparing my family and making sure that I was doing everything I could to prepare my family for my loss.”

Leecy kept fighting, and by the fall of 2013 she was declared cancer free.
She said, “I was a survivor, and I was wearing the pink ribbons and, you know, doing all the things that survivors do to celebrate, you know, the end of their treatment. So, I was absolutely in the mindset that my cancer wasn’t coming back.” 

The Finks celebrated the holidays and in January Leecy flew to a bridal trade show in Dallas. 

“I was looking at those sparkly dresses and I collapsed, and I had a major seizure,” said Leecy. 

The cancer had spread to her brain.

“Her odds of relapse were significant,” said Dr. Oldham.  “She had brain metastasis, but she also had lung metastasis or, lymph nodes in the middle of her chest.  Cause we biopsied one of those. So, she had two different areas where she had metastatic breast cancer.”

Leecy said, “If you look up triple negative breast cancer and brain tumor, it's going to tell you three to six months. I wanted to see my first daughter graduate high school, and she was going into her senior year.”

Through it all, the Finks leaned on faith. Their church and community also surrounded them with prayer. 

Leecy said, “We got this postcard from this missionary in India, and it was a picture of this, I guess it was a vacation Bible school, just hundreds of Indian children all crowded in. And the postcard said, all of these children prayed for you today.” 

“And, and that was God saying, you need to open your eyes to me,” said Gary. “Because I wasn’t, I was mad. But He showed me He was listening. And when I sat down and I looked at all the times that He had opened doors, I just didn't go through them. All the help the friends were trying to give, and I was just overwhelmed.”

And yet, months later, scans revealed even more tumors now in her lungs and one pressing on her aorta. That Christmas the family planned a final trip. 

“I thought, I want to make some memories so that their last memories of me and our family altogether, are positive,” said Leecy. “And, when I got back, I started on a much harder chemo regimen.”

She said, “I was getting sick all the time. I was septic multiple times in the hospital.  I was very close to dying many times. And most of the time it wasn't actually from the cancer, it was from trying to fight the cancer and the things that the cancer was doing to my body. And, you know, it was such an internal battle going on physically inside of me. As well as a spiritual and a mental battle too.”  

Leecy kept fighting and her family kept praying. Six months later, the Finks got miraculous news.

“I had a brain MRI and CT of my chest, abdomen, pelvis, which was routine for me at that point. And there was no evidence of active disease. None in my lungs, none in my brain, none in my stomach, none in my chest. The cancer was not showing up at all on these scans,” said Leecy. 

Dr. Oldham said, “I think you have to say she's cured. She's been out a number of years with no recurrence. Her odds of doing that were essentially zero.” 

“I’m grateful she's alive,” said Gary. “Her kids are grateful she's alive and she's been able to see two of her grandkids born and be there for that and hold them and, and see her older kids graduate.”

Today, more than a decade later, Leecy is still cancer free. She advocates for cancer patients, and sits on the national board of cancer research, hoping others will have a future.

“I think it's a tribute to her and her attitude and her faith,” said Dr. Oldham. “And prayer, I can't take credit for this. To cure somebody from where she was is not something that you can expect.” 

Leecy said, “I’m trying to learn that it's okay to be the miracle. And that's a hard place because there's a lot of survivor's guilt when you are doing well and other people aren't. But at the same time, I was thinking about when Jesus healed people in the New Testament, they just didn't go into a room and  pray and just thank God for their healing. They ran through the streets and celebrated. And so, I'm at a point in my life where I want to run through the streets and celebrate that I am a miracle, but also to share that hope with others.”