Meet the Models, New England: Laura Bosse

Thanks to the pandemic, Laura Bosse was a year late to her mammogram. She credits the time lapse with saving her life because although DCIS breast cancer was discovered in her left breast, “it might not have been seen at 40 and then I would have waited five years to get another.” As a single mom with two kids, she chose a double mastectomy to rid herself of worrying in the future, but in March of 2022, Laura began experiencing pain in her left side. Upon calling her doctor, she was assured it probably wasn’t cancer and told to keep monitoring. With a healthy lifestyle and no family history of cancer, Laura continued on, assuming it was a pulled muscle from working out. It was only when a week without exercising saw the pain grow that she insisted on imaging. 

An ultrasound and MRI would reveal that it was her rib and sternum breaking and when a doctor told her the imaging “didn’t look good,” she was stunned to receive a clear MRI. With the doctor’s words ringing in her ears, she insisted on further imaging and a CAT scan revealed her original cancer had metastasized to her bones. It meant a stage 4, metastatic diagnosis. Recognizing it was her own advocacy that got her to a diagnosis, Laura has “a lot of anger, but I have switched to MGH now and I absolutely adore my oncologist.” 

When we spoke with Laura, she had completed 19 chemo treatments, with four more to go. Now complete with chemo, she will remain on immunotherapy permanently. With her diagnosis of HER2 positive breast cancer, doctors have assured her she can live many years and she “tries to focus on that, but this is taking decades of my life most likely,” and of course, her brain immediately thinks about her daughter: “my first thought was now my daughter has a history of breast cancer, but at least now she will be monitored.” 

Though still grappling with the complexities of this diagnosis, Laura is quick to say, “you hear stage four and you think ugh, but it doesn’t have to be.”