Lainie Schultz is 27 years old. In her short life, Lainie has been diagnosed with cancer multiple times. "At 18 months old, I was diagnosed with adrenal carcinoma of my left adrenal gland. At 24 years old, I was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. At 25 years old I was diagnosed with melanoma. At 26 years old, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and a month before my 27th birthday I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer."
Yes, that is a smile on her face. Lainie has smiled through chemo, through surgery...through four different types of cancer.
"I'm not scared of cancer. I've dealt with it five times and I am not scared of it, and I know if I catch it early then it will be cured."
Her oncologist is Dr. Nicholas Tranakas. "Essentially we watch her like a hawk."
That's because Lainie has li-fraumeni syndrome. A rare disorder, only a few hundred cases in the U.S., makes the person more susceptible to cancer. It can be inherited or can happen spontaneously. "This is a defect in a gene that we have called p53, and this particular gene is responsible for stopping breast cancers from forming," says Dr. Nicholas Tranakas, oncologist.
But it hasn't stopped Lainie from enjoying her life. She blogs about her disorder, and recently got engaged and set the date...March 3rd of next year. "The highest peak of my syndrome they say is between your 20s and 30s so I am hoping for my 30th birthday present I won't have to deal with it again, but you know, the reality is it could happen again."
