How A Young Mom Is 'Living, Not Just Surviving' After Incurable Cancer Diagnosis 🫂

- CBS News, by Kerry Breen, Sept. 13, 2025

'How a young mom is "living, not just surviving" after incurable cancer diagnosis'
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Elissa Kalver was 34 when she found a lump in her breast. She had no family history of cancer and had just welcomed her first child. She assumed the lump was a cyst. But when she went to get it checked out, doctors found another lump in her armpit. Biopsies found that both lumps were malignant. More tests found the situation was worse than she could have imagined: a PET scan found cancer in her lower spine and liver. She was diagnosed with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.

Diseases that have spread as far as Kalver's are considered incurable, according to the Cleveland Clinic. "I was told I wasn't going to die tomorrow, but I was told that there was an 80% chance that I would die within five years," Kalver said. "The first oncologist I had, to uplift me, was like, 'Well, I have some patients who are six, seven years out.' Hearing that, as a 34-year-old, that your hope is to live till 40, was crazy."

The new mom had to quickly adjust to her new reality.

In my head, I was like, I know other people who have gone through this, I'll cut off my breasts, whatever we have to do to get rid of it," Kalver, now 38, said. "And it was after the PET scan, I understood that I didn't understand. It really shifted to trying to understand that I'm essentially a cancer patient for the rest of my life."

- What is HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer? HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer is an aggressive and fast-growing form of breast cancer that is considered incurable but treatable. Patients with HER2-positive breast cancer have high levels of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, or HER2, a protein that manages how cells grow and divide, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The prognosis and treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer vary depending on when it is diagnosed and the spread of the disease at the time...

- Read More + Photos,
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elissa-kalver-her2-positive-metastatic-breast-cancer-memorial-sloan-kettering-ucla/