A trial drug has kept Desiree Dufour’s breast cancer at bay — and now, the medication has been approved by the FDA
When Desiree Dufour was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, she was told it was caught so early that it was stage zero.
The mom of two, then 35, had a lumpectomy, committed to her follow-up appointments, and thought everything was fine. Two years later, Dufour, a healthcare worker, was lifting a patient and, “I thought I just kind of pulled the muscle, I had a pain on my right side,” she tells PEOPLE exclusively.
“I was like, it’s nothing,” she recalls. But when the pain persisted she decided to see a doctor. After a few tests — and then a few more — she received some bad news.
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“It was metastasized breast cancer,” she says, adding that experts told her, “I needed to make my arrangements.”
The Wilton, Maine, resident said she was told she had 4 to 7 months to live, and her only option was 4 to 5 rounds of chemo. “I have two children,” she said of Trey, then 13, and Teagan, then 8. “So I’m like, that’s really not good enough for me.”
Dufour started researching trials and discovered one helmed by Dr. Dejan Juric at Mass General Cancer Center. “When we first met, he asked me to set a goal and I said, ‘Well, I want to see both my children graduate.’ And he was like, ‘That’s a huge goal.’ But I wasn’t going to settle for anything less.”
She started the treatment, she said, “and now, it’s 7 years later.” Teagan is 16 and Trey is 20 — and she has a grandson, Oliver, who is 1.
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Dufour isn’t just living with cancer — she’s thriving. In December 2020 she went on a road trip with Teagan in an RV that she and her kids renovated themselves. “We just made it more homey,” she said, adding that they painted it and added special touches to make it feel comfortable.
“I’ve always wanted to travel, and then after sitting for two years in the winter, I decided that we should do it — now is the time to travel,” she said.
The trip, she said, was “priceless,” and not just because of the miles covered or the sights seen. It was about being with her daughter.
“For Teagan to support me, and for me to get on board to share that time with her” — Dufour tells PEOPLE — “that was the whole thing for me.“
In addition to visiting family, they went to Hershey Park, Nashville and SeaWorld in Orlando. On a kayaking trip in Florida, manatees swam under their boat. Dufour remembers seeing her daughter’s face “light up.”
“To see her face, the little things were even bigger to me,” she says.
Now her family is saving up for a bigger RV so her son, his girlfriend, and her grandson can join them on the next trip.
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And she’s committed to staying healthy.
The medication she’s on — Inavolisib with palbociclib and fulvestrant — was approved by the FDA, which means it will be available to other patients soon. “I don’t want people to give up. I’ve met a lot of people along the way that have been diagnosed and they just kinda stop believing, like there’s no hope.”
She shared that her children are what keep her going. “Just to see both of my children — looking back from when they were born to now, and how much they’ve grown. All the things you want them to turn out to be — and seeing that, looking into their eyes.”
“That’s what I took out of all of this,” she says.
“I strive each and every day to be here,” Dufour tells PEOPLE. “I’m gonna beat those odds. I already have.
She adds, “I feel like I’m gonna live for a long time.”
