Mom of Two Thrives Despite ‘Chemo-Resistant’ Colon Cancer Diagnosis

Heather Kaiser, a 43-year-old attorney and mother of two boys, was living a full and busy life when she went to her doctor in 2025 about stomach issues. She never expected to start a long medical journey.

At first, Kaiser thought her symptoms were caused by hormones or her diet. After trying an elimination diet, she felt better and even joked to friends that she couldn’t possibly have cancer.

But her symptoms came back even though she was eating well. Within a month, she ended up in the emergency room. Doctors sent her home, saying it was “just an ovarian cyst.”

At a follow-up visit with her OB-GYN, doctors finally took her symptoms seriously. She got a referral to a gastroenterologist.

“Even the GI doctor didn’t think that it was cancer,” Kaiser told Healthline. “We all thought it was probably going to be irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or celiac disease.”

But after a colonoscopy, the doctor was visibly upset. He told her, “I cannot believe I have to tell you this. I found a mass the size of a fist.” He said it would need surgery and was likely cancer.

“I held out hope for a good week, as we waited for pathology,” Kaiser said. “But when I got it back, I was like, ‘OK, so … I have cancer.’”

She waited a full day before telling anyone, even her husband. She needed time to process the news herself.

“We all believed that we had caught it early, and I was just gonna be able to do surgery,” Kaiser said. “It just hasn’t been my story.”

Doctors first thought Kaiser had a common, slow-growing form of colon cancer. After talking with surgeons, she scheduled surgery for June 2025, six months after her first ER visit.

“It was kind of far out, but there was life going on. I have two small boys, who were 10 and 5 at the time. I wanted to wait until they were done with school,” she said.

The surgery went well, but her surgeon was fairly sure they did not get clean margins. Clean margins mean no cancer cells are found at the edges of the removed tissue.

Kaiser then saw an oncologist, who sent the tumor for genetic testing.

“I remember sitting in the hospital, and I was so afraid of chemo,” she said. “I was afraid of how I was going to feel, how I was going to look, and mostly, how I was going to be able to show up as a mom.”

Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer deaths in people under 50 in the United States, according to a recent report from the American Cancer Society (ACS). The ACS estimates that 158,850 new cases of colorectal cancer will be diagnosed in 2026.

“We have to figure out why this keeps rising in young people because in our community, we hear it as young as 11 years old, 17 years old, 20 years old,” Anjee Davis, CEO of the advocacy group Fight Colorectal Cancer, told Healthline.

Kaiser waited six long weeks for her tumor’s biomarker results. During that time, a PET scan showed she had extensive metastatic disease. This officially gave her a stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis.

Typically, colon cancer spreads to the lungs and liver. In her case, it spread to the lymph nodes around the lungs and liver. Her medical team noted this was unusual and waited for biomarker results before deciding on treatment.

When the biomarker results came back, Kaiser learned she had a rare type of colon cancer called BRAF. This mutation is found in only about 10% of metastatic colorectal cancers. Kaiser had a specific BRAF mutation called V600E, which appears in about 96% of BRAF colorectal cancers.

This meant her treatment would be completely different.

“The prognosis was 13 months,” she said. But clinical trials were happening for the V600E mutation.

In August 2025, Kaiser joined a treatment plan based on the BREAKWATER clinical trial. She was the first person in Minnesota to take part in this protocol outside the trial.

“I called myself Patient Zero, even though I’m sure I was never actually called that!” Kaiser joked. “Mayo Clinic was following me, Minnesota Oncology was following me, I’m being followed by the University of Minnesota, because I’m just so new.”

She started a regimen of four drugs. Three were given by IV, and one was an oral medication called Braftovi.

Before Braftovi, Kaiser’s specific colon cancer mutation was chemo-resistant, which is why her outlook was so poor. But Braftovi targets the cells that allow cancer to reproduce and also boosts the effects of other drugs.

The first five months of treatment were hard. Kaiser had nearly every side effect, including nausea, fatigue, constipation, diarrhea, skin and hair changes, mouth sores, and neuropathy.

“I was really cold sensitive. I couldn’t have anything cold. I couldn’t touch anything cold. It was really rough,” Kaiser said.

She tried many medications for nausea, but nothing worked. She thought she would just have to live with it and eat only toast and applesauce.

Then she was able to start with the Minnesota Medical Cannabis Program.

“I take an oral cannabis pill. And that finally helped with the nausea. I take it before bed, and I take a gummy in the morning to help with the nausea and fatigue during the day.”

Kaiser had her first CT scan after treatment in October 2025. She had completed eight rounds of treatment.

“The CT scan came back, ‘complete response to treatment, no evidence of disease,’ which was a shock. It was a shock to my doctors. They didn’t even see those kinds of fast results in the trial.”

Her doctors looked at what might have helped her respond so well. They said her age and overall health were possible reasons. She had always exercised regularly and kept doing so during treatment.

“My oncologist also thought that my positive attitude contributed to my quick response,” she said.

Even with these great CT results, Kaiser must continue treatment. That is because the V600E mutation is not curable and does not go into remission.

Now, at 43, Kaiser says she leads a full and busy life despite her stage 4 cancer diagnosis. The hardest part, she says, is balancing motherhood, work, and family life without the energy and stamina she once had.

Still, her supportive community of family, friends, and neighbors has made a big difference. Knowing she has help when she needs it — and even when she doesn’t know she needs it — has allowed her to keep working full-time and be the best mom she can be.

Kaiser says the best advice she can give to people living with cancer, especially those facing indefinite treatment, is how she has lived since starting treatment.

“The best thing to do for me was to plan my life, and then just fit cancer in there, rather than allowing cancer to run my life,” she said.

Kaiser added that she tries to run her life first and then make space for the cancer.

“I have this really busy, awesome, full life,