Before her ovarian cancer diagnosis, Trish Kifer was a kindergarten teacher. Now she’s a teacher of a different kind, helping other cancer survivors through their journeys.
“I want to help others and be a navigator for them and their path,” says Kifer, who in 2021 published a book, “Knowing the B.A.S.I.I.C.S. Can Save Your Life!” A guide for women with ovarian cancer in diagnosing, treating, and living with their disease, the book contains lessons such as knowing the early symptoms, paying attention to your body, becoming your own advocate, learning as much as you can, and finding the right team.
“You have to individualize your treatment to your body and your circumstances,” says Kifer, who lives in Fort Collins and was treated by University of Colorado Cancer Center member Saketh Guntupalli, MD. “It’s about taking care of yourself throughout one of the hardest journeys in most people’s lives. Not to sit in fear, but to embrace the mindfulness it brings.”
Starting with symptoms, then treatment
Kifer’s ovarian cancer journey began in 2019, when she noticed symptoms like incontinence and abdominal pain. An active athlete and runner who had just completed a half marathon, Kifer thought the symptoms could be related to exercise. Her primary care doctor performed an ultrasound just in case, and that’s when the cancer was discovered. Kifer was referred to Guntupalli, who performed a laparoscopic surgery to remove the tumor. During the operation, he found that the cancer had spread to her colon and liver.
Kifer with her family.
“The deal was, if he went in there and saw something, he could do surgery right then, and then he would just close up and we would call it a day,” Kifer recalls. “Then, as soon as I woke up, I had this feeling. My husband said, ‘It’s stage 3 cancer.’ I wanted to go in for a surgery and have him just cut it out, and that chapter will be closed, and we’ll be on our way. But that was not the case.”
Kifer did three rounds of chemotherapy to shrink the tumors, then had another surgery to remove the remaining cancer. Guntupalli also treated her with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC), a process that involves filling the abdominal cavity with chemotherapy drugs that have been heated.
Despite all the treatment, however, there was a spot of cancer on Kifer’s liver that kept coming back.
“I think of it like those trick birthday candles that you blow out, and the flame comes back,” she says.
Out-of-the-box care
Running out of options, Guntupalli tested Kifer’s blood for markers that showed she could be treated with the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda), which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of other cancers, but not ovarian cancer.
“We thought outside the box,” says Guntupalli, professor of gynecologic oncology in the CU School of Medicine. “We used our in-house lab to test her for expression of immunotherapy markers, and we had to petition the drug company to get the drug. Once she started it, she had a complete response.”
That complete response means that Kifer is now cancer free. Her final infusion of Keytruda was in November 2023. She has now turned her focus from her own treatment to helping other cancer patients, not only through her book, but through Hope Journey, an organization she founded to encourage others to share their healing stories and direct them to research, educational materials, and a community of support.“With struggle comes growth, and you can go from surviving to living a life to where you're thriving,” she says. “That’s what I really want. I need to pay it forward, because there are so many people who have passed from cancer and their journey is over way too soon. I don’t want somebody else to go through what we have gone through.”
Kifer also has become an advocate for the CU Cancer Center and one of its partner institutions, UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus.
“I talk to people in Fort Collins who say, ‘I don’t want to drive down to Anschutz.’ I tell them it’s worth going to a place where you have a team that is supportive of you as a person,” she says. “It’s a research hospital, and the team is on their game and on the front lines of what’s coming down the pike on how to eradicate this disease and help people live with it. Dr. Guntupalli listens to you as a person, not just a patient or a client. Having all that at your fingertips is priceless.”
