Ellen Rabideau revealed in an interview that her baby daughter may have saved her life when she refused to breastfeed. Doctors soon discovered the reason why, with the Michigan mom found to have breast cancer.
Her baby Tatum Rabideau was born on Mother's Day last year, according to WDSU. When the infant would not latch to breastfeed weeks later, Ellen started to worry. She said that her right breast became very swollen and large and extremely painful.
She said that at her six-week postpartum appointment, her OB Jen said that just does not look right. Jen told Ellen that she thinks the latter might have mastitis or some type of more serious infection.
Baby Tatum changed and saved her mom Ellen's life
Her condition turned out be more than serious as a closer look revealed that she was suffering from stage three inflammatory breast cancer. Ellen said that inflammatory breast cancer is incredibly rare and aggressive. To make matters worse, there is never usually a lump to be found.
That meant Tatum, who was delivered at 37 weeks, not only changed her mom's life, but she also saved it. Ellen said that she had a clean mammogram back in February but they do think the cancer may have started growing while she was pregnant. She really thinks that her daughter coming early was the start of getting this ball rolling and finding her diagnosis.
There is some good news as Ellen now is in remission. That is something she thought was not possible given that she lost both of her maternal aunts to the dreaded breast cancer when they were in their 40s. She now has the same doctors who treated her aunts.
Ellen hopes to rewrite breast cancer story for their family
Rabideau discovered at the age of 18 that she had a BRCA gene mutation and she was more at risk for breast cancer. Her mother and seven out of nine of her cousins have the gene mutation too, according to Click on Detroit.
Dr. Nayana Dekhne said that six months prior to Ellen's diagnosis, there was what they call a practice-changing study. The said study released data, showing that using these PARP inhibitor drugs in BRACA-mutated patients gave better outcomes among cancer patients.
Dekhne said she was able to at least provide Ellen with that information to say they have a better chance, and that her story is going to be different than every other family member in her family. She added that hopefully, Ellen's daughter never has to deal with this, and by then, they find a permanent solution.
That brings more hope to Ellen and for her future. She said that to kind of rewrite the story for their family, she feels really lucky. She said she is just grateful that they had to have a different ending this time.
