Young mom diagnosed with breast cancer 6 months postpartum

Claire Feterl relies on cancer care team for preserving chance of growing family

Young mom diagnosed with breast cancer 6 months postpartum

Never in a million years would Claire Feterl have imagined a cancer diagnosis, a double mastectomy, IVF treatment, chemotherapy, and hormone therapy while navigating life with a newborn – before she turned 30.

That was not on her bingo card. It was not part of her plan.

But that was her reality at 27 years old in 2017.

“Graysen, my oldest, was around six months at the time,” Feterl told Sanford Health News. “We were just playing on the floor, I felt a lump and I was like, ‘hmm, that’s weird.’

“I just assumed hormone changes and things like that, but I had gone to my doctor a few weeks later and just in casual conversation I said, ‘Hey, I have this lump. It’s probably nothing but can you check it out?’ She said the same thing. ‘It’s probably nothing, but let’s get it checked out.’”

A few days later while she was at work, Feterl got a phone call with words nobody wants to hear.

“My doctor says … ‘Sorry kiddo, your tumor tested positive for cancer,’” Feterl recalled.

Feterl was diagnosed with Stage 2 ER/PR+ breast cancer in which the cells have receptors for both estrogen and progesterone.

“Your biggest priority and your biggest worry is: I have a son at home now. Where do we go from here?”

Back-to-back appointments at Sanford Health were the beginning of that journey.

“I go to these appointments, and I see my oncologist and at this point, like the thought of chemo having any sort of effect on my future plans, I had no idea,” Feterl said.

Oncology meets fertility care

The Feterls had dreams of growing their family, but chemotherapy can cause some damage to the ovaries and make it harder to conceive naturally.

Feterl is grateful for the guidance of her oncologist Keely Hack, M.D.

“These hormone receptor positive breast cancers are really stimulated by estrogen. And during pregnancy, estrogen goes up and progesterone goes up,” Dr. Hack told Sanford Health News. “So that is a concern and definitely something that we talked about, and we talked about it on more than one occasion.

“I think it’s hard for those of us who’ve never had breast cancer to know just how scary that might be to think, ‘I want this so badly – to have another baby – but is it going to increase my risk for breast cancer coming back? And then, am I not going to be there to see my kids grow up?’ I would imagine that’s terrifying to think about.”

Within 30 days, Feterl would start chemotherapy treatment. But to preserve her fertility, Claire Feterl and her husband Tyler Feterl were referred to the Sanford Fertility and Reproductive Medicine clinic in Sioux Falls for a round of in vitro fertilization to freeze their embryos.

“So, we’re doing shots and labs and all of that within a two-week time period right after I’m diagnosed with cancer on top of these new mom hormones,” Feterl said.

After her IVF treatment, she underwent a double mastectomy which was recommended by her care team because of her young age.

Once she healed, chemotherapy began.

After chemo, doctors put Feterl in a medically induced menopause with shots to temporarily shut down ovarian function during and after chemo. During chemo, the function of this was to protect her ovaries. After chemo, the function was actually as part of her cancer treatment.

‘A chance to catch our breaths’

Two and a half years later, and with a clean bill of health, the Feterls were ready to try for another baby.

“It is so amazing to know we have access to a world-class health system in my town,” Feterl said. “I could have this well-rounded team that all wanted the same goal to get me healthy and they would go above and beyond to make sure that happened.”

Their second baby boy, Hudson, came in June of 2021.

From the beginning, her husband Tyler was there by her side through every up and down.

“There were days I’d hear phone alarms going off and Tyler would remind me to take my medications,” she recalled. “After my first chemo, I was not feeling well or getting better, so he called my doctor at her house in the middle of the night and she answered. It was a lot for him and he did it so well.”

“You’re young, have your whole life in front of you and this is just a chapter,” Tyler Feterl told Sanford Health News. “This hasn’t changed who we are or what we wanted to be, but I think this has made us stronger together.

“These little boys are everything to us.”

These days, the Feterls are grateful for time spent together.

“We didn’t have a boring year for years. We got married, we got pregnant, we had a baby. I had cancer that time between, you know, having cancer and having another (baby). You’ve got scans and tests and a pandemic. It was like one thing after the next. I think it was just recently that we were like, ‘We had a boring year and that was amazing.’ Like we finally got a chance to catch our breaths.”

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Posted In Cancer, Cancer Screenings, Cancer Treatments, Pregnancy, Women's