When Lindsey Parr Gritton visited her OB-GYN in April 2022, she told the doctor that she had been experiencing a burning lump in her breast. Lindsey, in her late 20s, was pregnant with her second child, a baby girl. Lindsey’s doctor didn’t believe the lump was anything serious, chalking it up to a clogged milk duct or mastitis. She didn’t suspect anything. Lindsey, however, believed there was more to the feeling and asked for an ultrasound.
Lindsey worried about her health and her unborn child’s.
Lindsey believes if she hadn’t asked for that ultrasound, she wouldn’t be alive today.
“I literally saved my own life just by asking for that,” she told People. A few days after the ultrasound, Lindsey got a call that doctors highly suspected the lump was cancerous.
Naturally, Lindsey was terrified, not only for herself but also for the child she was carrying. “It was a really emotional time for me,” Lindsey recalled. “I was pregnant and expecting my second daughter and I had had a miscarriage before her, so this was a big deal. I was expecting my rainbow baby.”
Lindsey delivered her daughter early so she could begin treatment.
A biopsy confirmed that the lump was “a really aggressive type of breast cancer.” Lindsey had two tumors in her breasts and lots of affected lymph nodes in her armpits. Lindsey said her family couldn’t believe the news.
“Everyone was devastated … We don’t have any history of breast cancer in my family on either side,” Lindsey explained. “My mom or my dad’s side, no cancer at all, really. It was a shock,” she told the magazine.
After the shock, Lindsey had to make some decisions about her treatment as well as her pregnancy. At 37 weeks, a week after the biopsy results, she was induced “just to get her out so I could start treatment as soon as possible.”
Lindsey enjoyed every moment with her family because she didn’t believe she’d be around to enjoy many more.
Lindsey’s delivery was not easy. She lost a lot of blood and doctors thought they might need to perform an emergency C-section. “I told them I didn’t want to do a C-section because it would postpone my chemo for my treatment, and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted a quick recovery so I could just start chemo as soon as possible,” she shared.
A week after having her daughter, Lindsey started chemotherapy. Her decision to bypass the C-section was the right one: A PET scan revealed that the cancer had spread. There were a dozen tumors in her liver.
“They had told me I had six months to live,” she said. “It was like the day after [the birth of her daughter] and it was just all bad news.”
Lindsey was in treatment for six months, when every three weeks she went to the hospital for three-hour infusions of chemo and immunotherapy drugs. Although it was hard being away from her children, Lindsey had the help of her husband, who worked from home, and both his and her parents. She managed to spend time with her family and felt like she enjoyed every moment because she thought she was on borrowed time.
“I was taking in every second, trying to soak up everything,” she explained. “I made a scrapbook, I wrote letters to my kids, I made videos, everything. I was trying to do everything I could.”
Lindsey’s body responded remarkably well to the chemo.
Halfway into her treatment, a scan showed that Lindsey’s tumors were shrinking. “We knew that was really good. We just didn’t know how long this treatment was going to work for,” she explained.
But the good news kept coming because the chemo was doing its job. “At the end of chemo, we weren’t expecting it, but everything was gone. My scan showed nothing was there,” she said, per People. “We were so happy after we found out there was no cancer in my body. We couldn’t, honestly, no one could believe it. It was really crazy and surreal.”
After the scans, Lindsey had a lumpectomy, to remove the area where doctors originally discovered the tumor. They also took lymph nodes. All of tissue from those surgeries were also cancer-free.
A year and a half after her diagnosis, Lindsey is still cancer-free.
“My doctor is still completely shocked that I’m still in remission,” Lindsey said.
Today, a year and half after her diagnosis, she gets immunotherapy and goes back for scans every six months. And everything has remained clear. “It’s just a miracle,” she said.
Recently Lindsey got to celebrate her 30th birthday and her daughter Savannah’s first birthday. “It’s really surreal because I just didn’t think I’d be here,” she said, per People. So every moment is just incredible.”
In addition to enjoying her life, Lindsey also wanted to use her journey to raise awareness. “Everyone thinks breast cancer happens after the age of 40. You don’t really think about it happening in your 20s,” she said.
When she was first diagnosed, she recorded a lot of videos for her children to have but never posted them. Eventually, she decided to share them. “I didn’t expect it to blow up that much,” Lindsay said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Part of the reason the videos have been so popular is because there are women who had similar stories.
“I actually have two really good friends that had the same type of cancer as me who are also in remission,” Lindsey shared. “We’ve connected and we talk through video chats. It’s been awesome.”