Tena Hughes He was planning a safari trip to Africa when he suddenly tested positive for Covid.
The infection ruined the vacation of a lifetime, but ended up saving the Arizona native’s life.
Unbeknownst to her, she had been suffering from cancer for a year and a half.
The tumors had spread to her brain and were responsible for the “crushing” pain she attributed to migraines.
Her positive Covid test was the impetus for her to get checked by a doctor and she credits the virus with being her “savior.”
Ms. Hughes of Phoenix has always been active, loves to hike and lifts weights frequently. But her ordeal with cancer has kept her away from the activities she has always loved.
After undergoing surgeries to remove the tumors in his brain, Hughes underwent several rounds of radiation to his brain. He then began immunotherapy, which shrank the tumor in his spleen.
She said: ‘I told him (the doctor) about my trip and how I was supposed to go to Uganda to see gorillas, and that’s when he said, ‘You know what? COVID saved your life.’
He said if you had gotten on that plane, the moment you reached altitude, you would have died.
Pressure changes in an airplane cabin and high altitude cause the body’s oxygen levels to plummet and pressure between the brain and skull to increase. All of this increases the risk of potentially fatal seizures.
Her trip to Uganda to see animals on a safari with a friend was a celebration of sorts for her, as she had just gotten out of a toxic marriage.
But the impromptu trip was called off on the day of her departure when Ms Hughes tested positive for Covid.
She had been suffering from severe headaches for a year, but the possibility that she had cancer never crossed her mind.
Ms Hughes told DailyMail.com: The tension in my neck, the anxiety when I was in our house, would build up in my neck and I would feel like I was grabbing my head.
‘And then the headaches became a constant for me.
“I had ibuprofen in my truck, in my purse, in my backpack, in my gym bag, everywhere. I took it constantly because I always had a headache, but I always attributed it to my life and my living conditions.”
Her severe headaches were caused by tumors in her brain, which appear as opaque white masses on her MRI.
Three years ago, while receiving immunotherapy, her immune system attacked itself, wreaking havoc on her liver and kidneys. She was hospitalized for two months.
About 10 days after testing positive for the virus, suffering from severe headaches, she met with a doctor via Zoom, who immediately told her to go to the emergency department for an MRI.
When she went to the hospital registration desk to inform them she was leaving, her doctor, who had been running tests on her all day, ran out to stop her.
‘Half an hour later… the doctor looked at me and said, ‘You know, I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’m very direct. You have four (tumors) in your brain.’
The one behind his left eye was the size of a golf ball and the swelling was pushing one side of his brain into the other hemisphere.
“And he said, ‘We have to take this down immediately.'”
But doctors performed CT and PET scans and diagnosed her with stage 4 melanoma that had metastasized to her brain, lungs and spleen.
She is a weightlifter and an avid hiker from Phoenix, so she is constantly under the harsh rays of the sun.
But she never noticed a dark spot that might indicate she had cancer.
Although melanoma begins in the pigment-producing cells of the skin, the cancer can spread to other parts of the body through the lymphatic system.
Melanoma cells can also invade blood vessels and enter the bloodstream, where they can travel throughout the body, taking root in different organs and forming tumors.
He was then told that less than a fifth of people with his diagnosis survive after five years.
The experience has been traumatic for her children, who were convinced that their mother would not survive.
The experience was incredibly difficult for their children, who were already under the stress of a divorce.
She said: ‘They were reading about my diagnosis on their phones and thinking: Mum is going to die. She’s not coming home.
“It was very traumatic for them. Now they see me healthier, they see me doing normal things, having our own house. Now they are seeing a therapist and they are finally getting the help they need.”
One day after receiving the diagnosis, she underwent surgery to remove tumors from her brain.
He then underwent several rounds of radiation to the brain and, finally, targeted immunotherapy, which boosts the body’s strength to attack cancer cells.
However, the immunotherapy proved too powerful, causing her immune system to attack her own body, causing severe damage to her liver and kidneys.
She opted for a fourth surgery to remove the tumors and decided not to resort to chemotherapy. Fortunately, immunotherapy shrank the tumor in her spleen and lung.
But that didn’t last.
She underwent a new treatment called TIL, which boosts immune cells derived from her body to specifically attack cancer. She is now completely cancer-free after six treatments.
She said: ‘And that’s how I stayed until 2023, when I had a PET scan and that little tumor on my lungs started getting bigger. So I did what I always do, I said, can we remove it?
Last week, Ms. Hughes became the first patient in the state to be effectively cured of her cancer thanks to a new type of immunotherapy called TIL (tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes).
It was only approved by the FDA in February and he was the first patient to receive it in Arizona.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Ms Hughes beamed with happiness as she announced that 11 tumours across her body, including several in her brain and chest, had disappeared.
However, TIL was not an easy treatment. It caused severe seizures and pain during each treatment. There were six in total.
The therapy involves removing a portion of a person’s tumor and taking it to a lab. There, scientists extract a specific type of immune cell called T cells and multiply them by the thousands.
Using this highly personalized elixir of immune therapy, T cells can begin working immediately after being injected, binding to cancer cells that have spread through the blood to various organs.
She said: “I wasn’t very optimistic about the TIL treatment because I’d never seen my cancer spread so quickly in such a short amount of time. So the fact that that tumour disappeared in the hospital while I was still there… I thought, ‘Oh my God, this could work.'”
There are three more patients in Arizona waiting to receive the same treatment and Ms. Hughes hopes her story will raise awareness of the issue and give more people a viable treatment option to overcome their metastatic cancer.
“I live on hope,” he said. “And I believe that nothing is impossible.”
He received the good news on Thursday and his immune system is now working at full capacity again.
Finally, you’ll be able to resume your active lifestyle of hiking Arizona trails and lifting weights at your local gym.
And to celebrate, he plans to travel to Paris in the coming months to end a trip with a close friend that was brutally cut short last fall when doctors in France detected another tumor.
Then you can finally go to Uganda for the safari of your dreams.
“I can’t wait. It was a long time before I could go see her and suddenly the damn cancer struck again and I had to go home.
“So now it’s finally time to end my trip there… I pinch myself every five minutes.”