How I Faced Stage IV Breast Cancer and Reclaimed My Life

My name is Jean Buena Cargullo, and I am a teacher from the Philippines. Teaching has always been my calling — there is nothing I love more than passing on knowledge to young people who represent the future of my country. That is why, when cancer entered my life, my first instinct was to keep living as normally as I could for as long as possible.

A Lump I Chose to Ignore

It started back in 2008. I noticed a small lump in my right breast, about the size of a thumb. I felt no pain and no discomfort at all, so I convinced myself it wasn’t serious enough to see a doctor about. Life went on, and the lump stayed at the back of my mind for years.

It wasn’t until 2012, during a routine medical check-up, that I realized how much things had changed. The lump had grown to the size of a fist. A biopsy the following year, in 2013, confirmed what I had been dreading — I had breast cancer.

Even then, I was in disbelief. I had never felt sick. There had been no pain, no warning signs that matched what I imagined cancer should feel like. My local doctor recommended a full mastectomy, removing the entire breast, but I could not bring myself to accept that option. I wanted to keep my body whole if there was any other way.

Searching Beyond Surgery

My husband refused to accept that surgery was our only path forward. He began researching alternatives and came across Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou. The more he read, the more hope he found — treatments like interventional therapy and cryotherapy stood out to him because they were minimally invasive, caused less trauma to the body, and carried fewer side effects than what we had been told in the Philippines.

He was the one who ultimately encouraged me to travel and pursue treatment there. Knowing that open surgery wasn’t the only way to fight this disease gave me the courage to try.

Discovering How Advanced My Cancer Really Was

In May 2013, I underwent my first evaluation at Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou. A multidisciplinary team of doctors assessed my condition quickly, and the news was harder than I expected: my cancer had already progressed to Stage IV, with metastasis affecting my lymph nodes and my left breast as well. Hearing this stage confirmed made my fear even greater than before.

But my husband stayed by my side, and with his encouragement, I agreed to begin interventional therapy.

My First Interventional Therapy

Interventional therapy works by using medical imaging to guide anti-cancer drugs directly into the artery feeding the tumor’s blood supply. Because the medication is delivered straight to the tumor site, the concentration reaching the cancer cells is far higher than what conventional chemotherapy achieves — and the side effects on the rest of the body are much lighter.

I remember lying on the machine, anxious and unsure of what to expect. An hour later, it was over. Looking back, I realized it wasn’t nearly as frightening as I had imagined. Aside from a brief moment of discomfort at the start, I barely felt anything at all.

Watching the Tumor Shrink

After two rounds of interventional therapy, my tumor had already begun to shrink. From there, my care team moved me on to a session of cryotherapy — a treatment where Argon gas is used to rapidly freeze the tumor and surrounding tissue, followed by Helium gas to thaw it. This freeze-thaw cycle destroys the cancerous tissue directly.

My treatment plan combined:

• Six sessions of interventional therapy
• One session of cryotherapy
• Consolidation radiotherapy

Step by step, the cancer cells in my body were destroyed.

Life Two Years Later

Today, my condition is stable, and I have returned to the classroom and the students I missed so much. Two years after my treatment, I still travel back every year for my regular follow-up check-ups. My doctor continues to report that my condition remains good and stable, with no signs of the cancer returning.

Looking back on everything, my message is simple: trust your doctors, and never underestimate the support of your family. Without my husband’s determination to find another way, I don’t know where I would be today.