We’ve Got This: The Pink Queen and Her Court

When Latrice Brown-Toller thought about attending GBMC's Cancer Survivor Celebration this year, she decided, "I wanted to be a pink queen.” It’s a title she has more than earned.

Brown-Toller was a teenager when her aunt died of breast cancer, and, in 2013, her mother also died from breast cancer. Latrice got her annual mammogram without fail. She has a son, Devon, to raise and is determined to be a grandmother to his children someday.

She has professional goals, too. Brown-Toller has been steadily advancing at Gilchrist since she started there in 2008. She began as a tech and is now a licensed practical nurse (LPN). In 2020, she began coursework to become a Registered Nurse (RN). In a cruel twist, she was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer that same year. This cancer provides none of the three treatment receptors commonly found in cancer cells, leaving few options. Brown-Toller began a course of Adriamycin, or “red devil.”

The drug earns its name from its color and its potential side effects. Brown-Toller felt them all, from hair and nail loss to exhaustion.

“It was like everything I loved about myself was gone, pretty much,” she recalled.

Fortunately, GBMC’s Chief of Medical Oncology Robert Donegan, MD, and Cecille Gumabon, PA-C, have been guiding her care. Infusion nurse Chris Tapley, RN, was there for Brown-Toller’s first round of chemotherapy and her last.

In fact, the Pink Queen has had a full court battling cancer with her: her GBMC oncology team; her Gilchrist colleagues, who took her to her appointments and even to lunch when she just needed to get out; and her family members.

Her first year of treatment was more than challenging. Her blood pressure was unstable during round two of chemotherapy, Taxol this time. During her 11th treatment (of 12), she suddenly couldn’t breathe. She was taken to the Emergency Department with pulmonary edema and hospitalized multiple times as the team worked to restore her lung function.

Once her chemotherapy treatments were complete, Brown-Toller had a bilateral mastectomy, and, later, reconstructive surgery.

She had to take a leave of absence from work but continued to pursue her academic goals. With support from family, friends and co-workers, Brown-Toller passed Medical-Surgical Nursing I. Her son and her cousin have been steadily in her corner. She was fighting her fight, but not alone.

Then, last December, Brown-Toller felt severe pain in her hip. She called Dr. Donegan, and a PET scan ordered after that call revealed her cancer had metastasized to her hip bone.

As she recovered from radiation therapy and another round of chemo, Brown-Toller began to feel pain again. The radiation treatments had inflamed the muscles near her hip bone. Steroids eased the pain, but drove her blood glucose to dangerously high levels, so her dose was reduced.

Brown-Toller hoped to celebrate Christmas 2022 cancer-free, yet it was back again. She found herself feeling depressed.

Once again, Brown-Toller asked for help. She met with Integrative and Palliative Medicine Advance Practitioner Suki Parks, PhD, PA-C.

“I went crying to Suki’s office,” she said. “She helped me out with the pain.”

She didn’t have to ask Devon to help.

“He cooked and cleaned and gave me my medicine and bought my insulin and everything in the world,” she said. “What kept me going through all this was my passion for school and my son, you know, because he doesn’t have any grandparents.”

In June, she stopped the steroids to get her blood glucose levels low enough for another PET scan. She joyously received the news she had been longing for: Brown-Toller is finally cancer free.

She is still battling pain. But she knows, thanks to GBMC and her friends and family, she isn’t fighting alone.