Woman Pregnant With Twins Presses on Despite Cancer, Other Diagnoses

Since December, a Lincoln County woman became pregnant with twins, endured a severe form of morning sickness, and was diagnosed with breast cancer and a rare genetic mutation.

Despite having to leave their jobs and move in with a relative in order to deal with the complex situation, she and her fiancé are keeping a positive outlook and trying to raise awareness about the importance of self-exams and genetic testing.

Jada Leung, 35, and Ryan McKeagney, 25, made the decision last fall to start trying to have a baby together. They found out they were successful just three weeks later.

The two got engaged on Christmas Day, and a planned vacation in early January turned into a hospital stay due to Leung’s hyperemesis gravidarum, a condition characterized by continued nausea and dehydration.

“It’s basically morning sickness, but amplified, which is common with twins, I guess,” Leung said.

Leung was getting sick as often as 20 times a day, McKeagney said. “It was pretty bad.”

As the doctors sought the source of the hyperemesis, Leung and McKeagney found out she was pregnant with the twins.

“They looked like very tiny grains of rice at that point. They were very surprised that they were able to see both of them, but they were as clear as day,” McKeagney said.

Leung tried to keep going to work with the hyperemesis for about two weeks, but finally had to give it up and stay home.

“They were giving me fluids and medication for nausea, and I’d feel better and then I’d go home and about a day or two later I was just back in the hospital again,” she said.

Leung had a catheter implanted in her arm and had to carry around an automated pump to administer fluids and medication.

McKeagney, on top of working between 50 to 70 hours a week, learned from a home care nurse how to deal with the medication and began getting up at 3 a.m. to prepare it and take care of his fiancée.

“I was so sick that I couldn’t have possibly remembered everything,” Leung said.

“It was pretty wild. Every waking moment of my day I was either at work or handling medication, or trying to make sure [Leung] was well-fed,” he said.

For about two months, Leung couldn’t eat or even drink water without getting sick.

Leung planned on returning to work when the hyperemesis abated, but her plans went awry when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in February.

McKeagney too had to leave work. He kept on working for about two months after Leung was diagnosed with hyperemesis, but the workload began to take its toll on him.

“I was just running really ragged at that point, and after she got her cancer diagnosis I kept coming home from work and she’d be crying on the couch, or she’d be on the phone talking with one of her friends and she’d just break down in tears,” he said.

“I talked to my bosses and said I just can’t do this five days a week. I didn’t get a lot of give, and took family medical leave, and I’ve been taking care of her since,” McKeagney said. “My leave ran out probably two months ago or so, and I don’t really know what my status is with my employer at this point. It’s not my priority at this point in my life.”

“We’ve both been really hard workers so it’s definitely been a change,” Leung said.

The pair had to sell Leung’s car, and moved in with McKeagney’s mother, Cheryl Howe, in late April.

Howe has helped them financially, and provided a lot of support such as driving them to appointments and assisting with paperwork and phone calls.

“I couldn’t drive with the medication I was on, so Cheryl actually helped us out a lot, bringing us to appointments and keeping everything straight,” said Leung, who sometimes had as many as four doctor’s appointments in one day. “It was just so many doctors and so much paperwork, it was just overwhelming.”

“I don’t know what we’d do without her,” McKeagney said of Howe.

Leung has had to visit four local centers for treatment: Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick, Maine Center For Cancer Medicine (now New England Cancer Specialists) in Brunswick and Scarborough, and Maine Medical Center in Portland.

Jada Leung and Ryan McKeagney (Photo courtesy Ryan McKeagney)

Leung’s cancer, an invasive ductile carcinoma, was surgically removed, as were five lymph nodes.

“Usually if it spreads through your body, it’ll spread through your lymph nodes. Those were actually all clear, so that was a good thing,” Leung said.

“It’s the most common form, but it’s extremely aggressive. Very small, but very aggressive. She was able to catch it very early on, which is a good thing,” McKeagney said.

It was “extremely painful having multiple surgeries all at the same time,” Leung said.

The doctors want Leung to undergo a double mastectomy, too, and though she is a candidate for reconstructive surgery afterward, she is not looking forward to it.

“I’m not excited about being too sore and tired to take care of my twins,” she said.

Despite the surgery, Leung’s doctors wanted her to undergo chemotherapy to ensure the cancer was gone.

Leung receives treatments of Cytoxan and Adriamycin every three weeks – two drugs which do not cross the placenta and will not affect the twins, she said.

The treatments are going alright, Leung said, but it still is not easy.

“At first the chemo didn’t affect me too too bad, it made me queasy and tired, but I’d already gotten used to feeling like that anyway, but as time goes on it builds up in your system, so it’s pretty bad now. I can’t go through a whole day now without taking a nap,” she said.

“The other day we did a bit of shopping, and I walked up and down a flight of stairs, and I was just in tears because my legs hurt so bad,” she said.

Leung’s family has been extremely supportive throughout the ordeal as well, calling to check up on her and help in any way they can, she said.

Though most of the medical bills will be taken care of now that Leung is on MaineCare, her cousin set up a GoFundMe page to help support Leung’s fight.

The pair has “definitely had an outpouring of support, whether it was kind words or money or both,” Leung said.

“It’s just really hard going from being healthy and independent to totally relying on other people,” she said. “At least I have other people to rely on. I can’t imagine what it’s like for people to go through this without a good support system.”

Family has become a point of concern for Leung, too, in an unconventional way.

The doctors put Leung’s blood through a genetic panel test to check for several gene mutations, including BRCA [BReast CAncer] genes, and discovered she had a rare genetic mutation known as Li-Fraumeni Syndrome.

The syndrome “greatly increases the risk of developing several types of cancer, particularly in children and young adults,” according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s website.

The prevalence of Li-Fraumeni Syndrome is unknown but one U.S. registry of affected patients suggests about 400 people from 64 families have the disorder, according to the National Library of Medicine.

“Testing all of the genes is really expensive, so I think a lot of people just do the BRCA ones, but it’s really important to spread awareness about it so more people get tested,” Leung said. “Yeah, it’s expensive, but it’s important to catch it early.”

Leung and McKeagney are currently working to get Leung’s family members tested for the syndrome.

“Obviously if we find out it’s genetic in the family, I want all my family members to get tested, if they have anything, to catch it early so they won’t have to go through a lot of the things I went through,” she said.

“The hardest part is there is a 50 percent chance that it will be passed on to the children,” McKeagney said.

“But it’s not, right?” he said to Leung. “They’re going to be happy, healthy babies.”

The diagnosis means Leung has an 80 to 93 percent chance of getting another form of cancer in her lifetime, she said.

“Basically, that’s kind of lingering because it’s pretty much going to happen, we just don’t really know when,” Leung said. “Everything’s okay so far.”

Had it not been for her pregnancy, however, neither the cancer nor the Li-Fraumeni may have come to light as soon as they did.

“I wish I had said or done something sooner,” McKeagney said.

McKeagney said he and Leung were aware of her lump, but took no action. “She was scared to say anything to her doctor because there’s cancer in her family,” he said.

“We were aware of it for a little while and had convinced ourselves that it probably was nothing, just a piece of fatty tissue or something to that effect,” McKeagney said.

Even the doctor didn’t think it was anything troublesome, but ordered the biopsy anyway, he said.

“It was actually very relieving when we said something to her doctor and she checked it out and immediately said, ‘I really don’t think this is anything to be worried about,'” McKeagney said.

The lump ended up being something to worry about after all, though.

“Women find lumps all the time that turn out to be nothing, but unfortunately that wasn’t my case. At least we found it early,” Leung said.

Leung hopes her situation can open the public’s eyes to the importance of self-exams and genetic testing for gene mutations.

“I found the lump myself, so I wanted to spread awareness of women doing self-exams. Everybody knows that you’re supposed to, but a lot of women don’t. It’s just good to catch it early,” she said.

Once her chemotherapy is complete, Leung hopes to volunteer at The Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing in Lewiston. Volunteering will help Leung deal with all she has been through, she said, similar to donating her hair after she started chemo.

“I cut my hair off because it was pretty long and donated to Wigs for Kids, and that kind of helped me deal with losing my hair, knowing that it was going to help somebody else,” she said.

As far as the babies go, everything is looking good. Leung is 32 weeks along with a healthy boy and girl (currently about 3 pounds each) expected to be born in late July or early August.

“When we first found out that I was pregnant, everyone was asking me if I wanted a boy or a girl. I just kept saying one of each, and then we found out that we were having one of each,” Leung said. “We had talked about having twins actually. Twins run in his family, and a little bit in mine.”

“Having twins definitely helps, something to look forward to,” she said. “They’ll be here before we know it.”

“She’s a very strong woman, very strong,” McKeagney said of Leung. “I know she’s going to make an awesome mother and I know the twins are going to grow up to be very proud of their mommy.”