Neha's Story

Neha was born in Gaithersburg, MD in 1990. She grew up with two loving parents and one younger brother. She had an impressive high school career where she was elected as the Student Member of the Board of Education for the State of Maryland. Some of her middle school friends were even bridesmaids at her wedding. She graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2012 with a degree in Economics. She went on to work at JP Morgan in the Global Corporate Bank in New York City for four years. Following this she went to work at the Carlyle Group in Washington D.C. with the Real Estate Private Equity team as a Senior Associate. During her spare time Neha was working on completing a Masters in Real Estate at Georgetown. Her team and her went on to win the Case Competition held annually at MIT. In 2020 during the global pandemic Neha went on to marry her high school sweetheart, Sachin.

 

As many of you know, Neha enjoyed living life to the fullest. She loved spending time with family, friends and loved ones, traveling, and enjoying extravagant cheese boards paired with great wine. She organized countless supper clubs in any city she moved to helping to keep all her friends connected. She led an active lifestyle whether it be her daily class pass class or walking from one corner of NYC to the other in search of the best doughnuts or mulled wine. Neha devoted a large portion of her time to her family, whether it be connecting with family in India, her extended in-law family, or even her family at home. She treated everyone the same and deeply valued everyone as an individual.

 

After Neha and her husband decided to start a family in Washington DC near their respective families, at 24 weeks pregnant, she incidentally found a breast mass. With a biopsy and fine needle aspiration, Neha was diagnosed with Stage 2 Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC). TNBC is a very aggressive form of breast cancer that unfortunately has a poor prognosis. Neha’s resilience and love for her unborn daughter, Ayla, led her through the battle.

 

Prior to starting all her treatments, Neha had to first overcome her fear and vasovagal reaction she had since childhood of getting blood draws and having IVs placed. With time and focus, Neha was able to overcome this. She started with intravenous chemotherapy while she was pregnant and loved to tell people, “You can’t drink a glass of wine, smoke cigarettes, or have Advil when you’re pregnant, but you can get IV chemotherapy!”. After 4 cycles and 12 weeks, she finished her first round of chemo. Neha kept working at Carlyle during chemotherapy and her third trimester as she was determined not to let cancer stop her.

 

She was induced at 39 weeks and delivered a beautiful healthy baby girl, Ayla, the joy of her life. Within two weeks of delivery, Neha was able to rally and re-start chemotherapy, despite doctors saying she could wait a few more weeks. Neha didn’t want to wait. She didn’t want to give the cancer any more chance to win the battle or rear its ugly head. Neha got weekly chemo and immune therapy for 12 more weeks. Following about a month of recovering from chemotherapy, it was time for surgery. She opted for a more aggressive approach given how young she was and had a bilateral mastectomy. There was a 20-50% chance she could’ve had another malignancy in the other breast over the next proposed 50-60 years of her life.

 

Neha healed well from surgery and elected for radiation next. Again, given the aggressive nature of TNBC, Neha opted to go the extra mile despite doctors saying it may not be entirely necessary to have radiation. She spent the next five and a half weeks getting radiation 5 of 7 days a week and driving 80+ miles daily to get to the proton center. She loved listening to the Masters of Scale podcast during the drive. She’d always say, Sachin, after we’re done with this, we’re going to make a big difference for people, we’re going to find a way to help them.

 

Neha continued immune therapy and oral chemotherapy for another few months before she started having some toxicities and had to stop both. She got to travel a few times during her treatments, a couple trips to Florida, California, Paris, and Greece. She loved all the trips, and specifically enjoyed dressing up Ayla in the most beautiful dresses, hats, sunglasses, you name it. She loved matching with Ayla and took such amazing care of her despite not always doing well herself.

 

In September 2023 Neha started to notice she was getting more tired, weak, having significant back pain, and a new soft tissue mass on her flank. She got some new imaging and it confirmed our worst nightmare. She had metastases to almost all the major organ systems including her lungs, liver, a kidney, bones, pancreas, and skin. When you have metastases with TNBC unfortunately there is no cure. Neha didn’t let this stop her. Sachin and Neha were determined to make Neha the first to be cured.

 

It was a major setback of course, but she kept her focus and was able to find the best treatment possible. After being poked, prodded, and going through many tests, she was able to enroll in a Phase 1 clinical trial in Texas. Sachin and Neha flew down weekly in the beginning and then once every few weeks for her treatments. Ayla took her first steps in Texas when the family was visiting in November. Abhi, her brother came down as well for some moral support during many of the treatments. Neha’s sister-in law, Sonam, had planned to get married during the winter of 2023 and when asked if they should cancel/postpone it, Neha said absolutely not. She wouldn’t let this stop her either, she made sure she was at all of Sonam’s wedding celebrations and events despite going through treatment for metastatic disease. She wouldn’t allow cancer to be a reason that her daughter, Ayla, couldn’t participate or that Neha couldn’t enjoy a family celebration.

 

After four months of some promising response, unfortunately the cancer grew resistant to the treatment. She had found another clinical trial in Florida, but unfortunately it was too late. Neha’s cancer had spread to her brain and leptomeninges. She continued to fight, finding yet another new trial in Texas, but unfortunately ran out of time. She spent the last week fighting in the intensive care unit in Florida. She was surrounded by her loved ones and daughter when the time came.