Breast Cancer Survivor Pays It Forward; Becomes Oncology Nurse

There was a moment in Alison Remondelli’s therapy for aggressive triple-negative breast cancer that changed everything — not just in her treatment plan, but in her life.

Ms. Remondelli, who at the time was a 38-year-old restaurant manager, was receiving weekly chemotherapy infusions at Baptist Health Miami Cancer Institute’s Plantation location. She was about three months into the process, with sessions carefully scheduled around her work demands so that she could keep her full-time job and participate in family life with her husband and preschool-aged son. She could see the light at the end of the tunnel, with perhaps four more sessions left, and she was trying to power through.

On that Friday, when she arrived for her treatment, the nurses were concerned. She seemed weaker than usual. “I wanted to keep fighting. I said ‘No, I’m OK. I can do this.’ I thought I was holding it all together,” Ms. Remondelli recalls. The nurses were not convinced. “They were saying, you’re too sick. You need help today.”

The nurses pulled in the doctor. Ms. Remondelli’s medication was adjusted and additional appointments for intravenous hydration were scheduled to help get her through her last few treatments. In that moment, Ms. Remondelli recognized the nurses that really “saw” her — despite her efforts to minimize her difficulties — and that they really cared.

She realized she wanted to be someone like that. She decided to become a nurse.

A Special Team to Support Patients

Patients often rave about the supportive atmosphere at Miami Cancer Institute, part of Baptist Health Cancer Care. The approach to care is highly individualized and very personal, says Lauren Carcas, M.D., a breast and gynecologic medical oncologist in Plantation. And the commitment to compassion is shared at every level.

“We as physicians are nothing without the people that help support patients through care. We can prescribe therapy, we can manage their side effects, but really, it’s the nurses, the social workers, the nurse practitioners and physician assistants who see the patients beyond the exam room,” Dr. Carcas says. “They are the ones welcoming the patients when they arrive, administering the chemotherapy infusion. That connection is so important — and in Alison’s case, it changed the trajectory of her life.”

Ms. Remondelli sought treatment at Miami Cancer Institute specifically because of Dr. Carcas, who came highly recommended through a family friend. She had begun treatment elsewhere after being referred there by the doctor who diagnosed her, but she wanted to see someone who specialized in breast cancer rather than general oncology. She found that in Dr. Carcas.

“She really understood me. She was specific to my care and the type of breast cancer I had,” Ms. Remondelli says, adding that she met with several doctors to find the right one. “You need to look around, you need to ask questions. You need to do all of that stuff.”

Facing a Tough Fight With a Little Help From Some Friends

Ms. Remondelli was diagnosed with stage 3 triple negative breast cancer after she felt a lump on her right side. It was so aggressive that it grew, rather than shrank, after her first chemotherapy treatment, Dr. Carcas says. A plan was devised to administer infusions weekly to get ahead of it. “That’s the beauty of personalized care,” Dr. Carcas says. “We address what each individual patient needs for the best outcome.”

In addition to 16 sessions of chemotherapy, Ms. Remondelli had a double mastectomy, followed by radiation therapy with Ana Botero, M.D., director of radiation oncology in Plantation. She says she began to think of Dr. Carcas and the whole team as friends over her nine-month journey.

Dr. Carcas is not surprised that they hit it off so well. “I’m a little bit older than she is, but we have very similar lives, children the same age. There’s a lot of connection that comes through that,” she says. “You connect not just on a physician-patient level, but also on a personal level.”

Dr. Carcas even wrote one of Ms. Remondelli’s letters of recommendation for admission to nursing school. “What she wanted more than anything was to impact others the way that she had been impacted,” she says. “She went into this because she was so touched by our nurses; they helped get through what can arguably be described as one of the darkest times of her life.”

Making the Most of the Next Chapter

Going back to college in your 40s is not easy. But it wasn’t nearly as difficult as Ms. Remondelli expected, she says.

After completing her treatment and reconstruction four years ago, she spent two years in nursing school and has been a bedside nurse on a hospital oncology floor in Broward for about a year. She is working toward her advanced oncology certification and hopes to one day become an infusion nurse — like the ones she encountered at Baptist Health’s Plantation location.

“I love nursing,” Ms. Remondelli says. “I’m going to keep growing and educating myself.” Her breast cancer experience has made her a more patient and empathetic person, she adds.

Dr. Carcas, who continues to monitor Ms. Remondelli, couldn’t be prouder. “She radiates positivity, she radiates strength. She focuses on what’s important,” Dr. Carcas says. “While this was probably the worst thing that could happen — to be diagnosed with something like this — in so many ways, she turned something dark into such a light in her life.”

The fact that Ms. Remondelli is now spreading that compassion and caring to others is “just beautiful,” Dr. Carcas says. “She wanted to be able to pay it forward.”

Visit BaptistHealth.net/Mammo to learn more or schedule your breast cancer screening this Breast Cancer Awareness Month.