Handling Progression

About the presenters: 

Amanda Raffenaud

Amanda has been living with state 4 metastatic breast cancer since 2018. Not only was she completely shocked to be diagnosed with breast cancer, de novo, at the age of 38, but she was shocked to learn it had spread to dozens of bones in her body. She had no early stage breast cancer diagnosis and was even under the care of a breast surgeon for four years prior to her metastatic diagnosis. Since diagnosis, she has been in active treatment for stage 4 cancer, undergoing countless bone infusions, multiple surgeries, chemotherapy lines, and monthly oncology visits. She is on her 8th line of treatment in 3 years to help stop the growth and spread of cancer.  Currently she has mets to both breasts, lungs, liver, bones, and brain.

Amanda and her family are no strangers to hard things. Prior to her diagnosis, Amanda lost her husband, James, to mental health issues in August of 2016. Since then, as she became a single mother with MBC, she also became an advocate for mental health and wellness. She has spoken publicly about mental health issues and uses her social media platforms to remind others that their story matters and their lives are worth living. She has now added metastatic breast cancer awareness to her public platform.

Amanda is a proud Florida native, born and raised in Orlando, Florida. She is a three-time UCF graduate obtaining a bachelors, masters, and doctorate in health care administration and health management. She is currently an associate professor at AdventHealth University and teaches both undergraduate and graduate students pursing degrees in health care administration.

Apart from career, Amanda takes great pride in being a mother to two boys teenaged boys. She and her boys enjoy traveling, hammocking, hiking, going to the beach and spending time with their adorable Labradoodle, Lincoln.

It has been 3.5 years since her cancer diagnosis yet Amanda is thriving and learning how to find life, even in the unknown.  She recently received her yoga teacher certification and spends a lot of time in quiet outdoors, doing yoga, and finding joy in the midst of the hard.

Amy Parliaman

Amy Ellen Parliman lives life by faith and enjoys spreading kindness. She has a passion for serving her community thru her career in healthcare. 26 years ago, she went to school to become a radiology technologist. She enjoys performing diagnostic imaging on her patients, she prides herself in safe and quality care. About 12 years ago she became a leader in her field and has moved into a leadership role in the Diagnostic Imaging Department.

She worked in mobile imaging for 13 years, she recently changed jobs to reenter the hospital scene. She enjoys sharing her skills in diagnostic imaging with newer technologist. Her thoughts are to create an environment that is warm and inviting for patients during some of the worse times of their lives. She lives by a code to treat all of her patients like she wants her parents treated. Her goal is a smile or maybe a laugh while caring for her patients. Over the years she has been able to learn from her patients and team.

On January 29, 2014 Amy became a Cancer patient.  She underwent treatment for stage III breast cancer during 2014. She lived with NED until January 29, 2019 then she was told she had MBC. She is currently on her first line treatment. If the opportunity presents, she will share her various experiences of living after diagnosis.

She earned her MHA (Masters in Health Administration) from the University of Scranton in May 2021. Her goal is to take her passion of inspiring others to provide quality patient care and sharing her experiences as a patient and a worker in healthcare to a new level of leadership. If you are reading this, she would love for you to know don’t dream it, DO IT!

She has been serving the Breast Community by moderating Living One day at a time with metastatic cancer on Facebook. Her goal is to continue to work with members of this site and create more intimate relationships among the women in the group. Amy is excited to start a new chapter of sharing her story by being part of Living Beyond Breast Cancer “Hear My Voice” class of 2022 outreach program.

She loves the outdoors. She enjoys attending live sporting events. She and her husband are making their way around to all of the baseball stadiums. She loves football, she was even fan of the year for the Philadelphia Eagles and attended spring training in 2005.

She loves being an Aunt. She is a Georgia peach who currently lives in Upstate New York with her husband and 2 fur babies Oliver and Ziva.

Claudia Gonzalez

Claudia was born in Colombia, South America where she grew up surrounded by her parents, brother, sister, and many close-knit extended family members, including more than 20 aunts and uncles and 100 cousins. Looking for new opportunities, Claudia, her parents, and siblings made the United States their home in 1980. Moving to a new country, learning a new language, and leaving family and friends was a challenge for Claudia.

In March of 2018, Claudia faced a bigger life challenge. She was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer. A few weeks after the original diagnosis and after numerous tests she was informed the cancer cells had traveled to her bones and stage IV was added to her diagnosis. Claudia started her journey to treat this aggressive type of cancer in April 2018. Treatment included aggressive chemotherapy followed by a right mastectomy, one intense radiation to the lower vertebra, radiations to right chest and lymph nodes, and oral chemo that ended in September 2019. From October of 2019 to June of 2021 Claudia had - No Evidence of Disease (NED). A mammogram of her left breast done on June 8th, 2021, revealed two lumps. That same day a biopsy was completed and a few days later it was confirmed both tumors were again Tripple Negative Breast Cancer. The fear of recurrence unfortunately had become a reality for Claudia. The plan of treatment was once again chemotherapy that started in July 2021 and ended in November 2021 followed by a mastectomy. On January, 2022 results of a genomic testing was received. Claudia was informed she the tumor was positive for the PDL-1 protein. Soon after, she started with her new and present treatment, immunotherapy. Claudia is treated with Keytruda infusions every three weeks.

She has shared this journey with an amazing caregiver, her mom Teresa, who has been by her side every step of the way. Her three daughters, Melissa, Stephanie, and Daniela and her two grandchildren Adelia and Aviel give her a reason to advocate for a future that brings new treatments and higher chances of survival. Her message to everyone is to always be there for their loved ones, not just during difficult times but to create memories that stay in the heart forever.