Woman Discovers Cancerous Lump at 9 Months Pregnant While Applying Body Butter to Prevent Stretch Marks (Exclusive)

Nine months pregnant with her first child in January 2024, Marissa Sweitzer was slathering body butter to prevent stretch marks when she felt a lump in her left breast.

“I was freaking out,” says Sweitzer, 33, who lives in Concord, Ohio.

She drew a circle around the walnut-sized lump to track its growth, and later showed it to her obstetrician at her weekly check-up. Her doctor thought it was probably just her milk coming in. The lump didn’t hurt, Sweitzer recalls, and it seemed to have shrunk, so they decided to wait until the baby was born to do an ultrasound.

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On February 3, Sweitzer gave birth to her 8-lb. a daughter, Melody Day Andrade, at 11:17 a.m. at Cleveland Clinic’s Hillcrest Hospital.

That afternoon, when a lactation consultant visited the hospital room, Sweitzer’s boyfriend Austin Andrade asked him to look at the lump, saying it had been there for a while but the couple “didn’t like it.”

Before Sweitzer was released from the hospital, she had an ultrasound, a mammogram and a biopsy. The doctor told her they still had to wait for the pathology report, but in her professional opinion, it looked like cancer.

“When they told me, everything stopped,” Sweitzer tells PEOPLE. “My world hasn’t been the same since that moment.”

Marissa Sweitzer, Melody Andrade and Austin Andrade before she started chemotherapy.

Courtesy of Marissa Sweitzer

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Driving home from the hospital, her obstetrician called to reassure Sweitzer. “Marissa, we did it,” she recalls her doctor saying. “We’re going to do this together. We’re going to fight through this together. I’m going to be in your corner the whole way. I’m going to bring you the best team.”

Andrade, 24, also pledged his support. He remembers feeding her dinner that first night while she was trying to express her right breast. “He said, ‘No matter what, I’m here. I’ll do whatever it takes to help you.’”

When her general practitioner visited her a few days later to meet the baby, she also brought the pathology findings. She wanted to deliver the news in person: a biopsy showed that the new mom had breast cancer.

“She cried with us,” he remembers.

Sweitzer was officially diagnosed with stage 2B triple negative, stage three, invasive, ductal carcinoma of the breast and lymph nodes. But she also felt happy. “I was extremely grateful, relieved that it wasn’t anywhere else in my body,” she says.

Before starting chemotherapy on March 7, she and Andrade did a round of IVF. They were able to create an embryo in the hope that Melody would one day have a sibling.

Then it was time for him to brace himself and fight his illness.

Melody, Austin and Marissa during chemotherapy.

Courtesy of Marissa Sweitzer

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“She was so focused on how do we attack this, get rid of this and get on with our lives,” says her medical oncologist, Dr. Daniel Siblinger at the Cleveland Clinic. “What impressed me so much about Marissa was that she focused on what the end game was: How do we get rid of that breast cancer and how do we keep it from coming back?”

She finished chemotherapy in August, and in September she had a double mastectomy.

“I actually decided not to do the reconstruction,” she explains. “I got an aesthetic flat closure because I didn’t want to do any more operations. I just wanted to be with my daughter.”

The radiation ends these days. Siblinger says her body responded very well to the treatment and was cancer-free at the time of surgery. He admires her upbeat attitude throughout her battle with cancer. “She shines with her positivity,” he says.

As Sweitzer nears the end of his trip, he says he feels like a different person. She is no longer worried about petty arguments or if someone honks at her on the highway.

“I feel grateful, grateful. Cancer forces you to have a different perspective on life and forces you not to get angry over the little things,” she says. “Before, I used to emphasize the little things. Everything had to be perfect, everything had to be done the way it was supposed to be. Now it’s like I’d rather enjoy spending time with my daughter and my dog ​​and my boyfriend… I have more grace for myself — and for everyone around me.”

Marissa Sweitzer with her daughter Melody Andrade.

Courtesy of Marissa Sweitzer

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In fact, every day he tries to do at least one good deed for someone else.

“I like to spread happiness and positivity,” she says. Of course, he admits, it is not always easy. She goes to a psychiatrist who specializes in breast cancer “because there are difficult days, there are difficult moments, there are difficult minutes, there are difficult everything,” she says. “You just have to get through it.”

He also practices mindfulness and recites affirmations daily. She deliberately opens doors and windows and appreciates the time she spends outside: “I just enjoy what I can enjoy, when I can enjoy it,” she says.

Melody is now 9 months old. “She has the most beautiful smile,” says her mom. “She just brings joy. She is everyone’s little sunshine.”

She considers her daughter her guardian angel who saved her life.

“She’s my angel,” Sweitzer says. “If I hadn’t gotten pregnant, my milk wouldn’t have come and pushed the tumor to the surface. I’m only 33 years old, so I don’t go for mammograms. So by the time they found it, who knows what it would look like.”

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