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How Covid actually SAVED an Arizona mom's life - after cancer spread to her brain
Tena Hughes was planning a safari trip in Africa when she 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 the past year-and-a-half.
The tumors had spread to her brain and were responsible for the ‘skull-crushing' pain she'd put down to migraines.
Her positive Covid test was the impetus for her to go get checked by a doctor and she credits the virus as her 'savior'.
Ms Hughes of Phoenix has always been active, loves hiking, and frequently lifts weights. But her cancer ordeal has kept her away from the activities she has always loved
After undergoing surgeries to remove the tumors in her brain, Ms Hughes underwent several rounds of radiation on her brain. Then, she began immunotherapy, which shrunk the tumor in her spleen
She said: ‘I told [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 would have gotten on that plane, he said by the time you got to altitude, you would have died.’
Changes in cabin pressure on an airplane and high altitude cause the body’s oxygen levels to plummet and increase the amount of pressure between the brain and the skull. All of this raises the risk of potentially fatal seizures.
Her trip to Uganda to see animals on safari with a friend was a celebration for her of sorts, having just got out of a toxic marriage.
But the impromptu trip was canceled the day of their departure when Ms Hughes tested positive for Covid.
She had been getting bad headaches for about a year, but the possibility that she could have cancer never crossed her mind.
Ms Hughes told DailyMail.com: The tension in my neck, distress when he was in our house, would build kind of in my neck and it felt like it would grab hold of my head.
'And so headaches were a constant for me.
'I had ibuprofen in my truck. I had it in my purse, I had it in my backpack. I had it in my gym bag. I had it everywhere. I was constantly taking it because I always had a headache. But I always attributed it to my life and my living conditions.'
Her crushing headaches were caused by tumors in her brain, which appear as white opaque masses on her MRI
While receiving immunotherapy three years ago, her immune system attacked itself, wreaking havoc on her liver and kidneys. She was hospitalized for two months
About 10 after testing positive for the virus, with crushing 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 check in desk to let them know she was leaving, her doctor who had been running tests all day rushed out to stop her
'Half an hour later... the doctor just looked at me and he says, "You know, I've been doing this a long time, and I'm a straight shooter. You have four [tumors] in your brain.'
The one behind her left eye was about the size of a golf ball and the swelling was pushing one side of her brain all the way into the other hemisphere.
'And he said, "We have to get this removed right away."'
But doctors performed CT and PET scans and diagnosed her with stage 4 melanoma that had metastasized to her brain, lung, and spleen.
She's a weight lifter and avid hiker from Phoenix, so she is constantly under the harsh rays of the sun.
But she never noticed a dark blemish that would indicate she had cancer.
While melanoma starts in pigment-producing skin cells, 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 entire body, taking root in different organs and forming tumors.
She was told then that less than a fifth of the people with her same diagnosis survive after five years.
The ordeal has been traumatic for her sons, who were convinced that their mother would not pull through
The ordeal was incredibly hard on her boys, who were already subject to the stress of a divorce.
She said: 'They were reading about my diagnosis on their phones and they're like, mom's going to die. She's not coming home.
'And so it was so traumatic for them. And they're just now seeing me healthier, seeing me do the normal things, having our own home. They're just now seeing a therapist where they're finally getting the help that they need.'
One day after she got her diagnosis, she had surgery to remove tumors in her brain.
She then underwent several rounds of radiation on her brain and finally, targeted immunotherapy that ramps up the body's forces to attack the cancerous cells.
However, that immunotherapy proved too powerful, as it led to her immune system attacking her own body, causing extensive liver and kidney damage.
She opted for the fourth surgery to remove the tumors, choosing not to go down the chemotherapy route. Luckily, immunotherapy shrunk the tumor in her spleen and the tumor in her lung got smaller.
But that didn't last.
She underwent a brand new treatment called TIL, which turbocharges immune cells derived from her body to specifically target her cancer. She is now fully cancer-free after six treatments
She said: 'And so that's how I stayed until 2023, when I had an PET scan and that little tumor in my lungs started getting bigger. So I did what I always did, I said can we remove it.
Last week, Ms Hughes became the state’s first patient effectively cured of her cancer thanks to a new type of immunotherapy called TIL (tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes).
It was only just FDA approved in February and was the first patient to receive it in Arizona.
Speaking with DailyMail.com, Ms Hughes beamed with happiness in announcing that 11 tumors all over her body, including several in her brain and breast, had vanished.
TIL was not an easy treatment, though. It caused such severe seizures and pain during each treatment. There were six in total.
The therapy involves removing part of a person's tumor and taking it to a lab. From there, scientists extract a certain type of immune cell call T cells and multiplies them by the thousands.
Using this highly personalized elixir of immune therapy, the T cells are able to hit the ground running as soon as they're injected, attaching cancer cells that have spread throughout the blood to various organs.
She said: 'I wasn't real optimistic about the TIL treatment because I've never seen my cancer spread so quickly in such a short amount of time. So for that one tumor to be gone in the hospital while I was still there. I'm like, oh, my God, this might work.'
Three more patients in Arizona are in line to get this same treatment, and Ms Hughes hopes that her story will raise awareness about it and give more people a viable treatment option for overcoming their metastatic cancer.
'I I live on hope,' she said. 'And I think nothing's impossible.'
She got the good news on Thursday and, already, her immune system is back up and running at full capacity.
Finally, she'll be able to resume her active lifestyle of hiking Arizona trails and weight lifting at her local gym.
And to celebrate, she plans to travel to Paris in the next couple of months to finish a trip with a close friend that was brutally cut short last fall when doctors in France detected yet another tumor.
Then, she will finally get to go to Uganda for her dream safari.
'I can't wait. It's a long time coming to go see her and then freakin' cancer struck again, and I had to go home.
'So now is finally finally the time to finish my trip there... I pinch myself every five minutes.'