Pregnant woman reveals the simple symptom that unearthed a life-changing diagnosis

An Illinois mother suffering from an extreme cough made a life-changing discovery weeks before she was due to give birth.

MaKenna Lauterbach, then 26, was pregnant with her son when she developed a nagging cough during her last trimester in December 2023.

The new mother, who lives on a farm in Washburn, Illinois, complained about the problem several times to her local doctors, but because of her pregnancy they were reluctant to perform breast scans.

“I feed the horses hay every morning and noticed how winded the dry cough made me,” she said.

‘My body felt like I had only run two miles, when in reality I had only walked back and forth to the barn. I knew something was wrong.’

By the time she was 36 weeks pregnant, her coughing had worsened and she was vomiting frequently.

She was eventually admitted to hospital and doctors began performing scans, which revealed she had a large tumor the size of a grapefruit in her middle chest cavity and right lung.

The tumor had completely blocked the artery to the right lung and Lauterbach was found to be in respiratory distress, indicating that both she and the baby were not receiving enough oxygen.

Due to her unique but critical condition, she was flown to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago and rushed to an ICU where multiple obstetricians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, pediatricians, nurses and staff oversaw her case.

Doctors soon noticed that the young mother’s blood pressure rose and she began to contract, to which the baby did not respond well.

Dr. Lynn Yee, MD, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine explained: ‘MaKenna was really in trouble, and we had to act quickly – this couldn’t wait until Monday morning.

‘When you’re pregnant with a baby that’s almost full term, your lungs aren’t functioning at full capacity yet, and if you add a huge tumor on top of that, you run the risk of respiratory collapse and cardiac arrest. ‘

‘It is extremely rare for this type of tumor to invade the major blood vessels of the heart. Maybe we’ll see something like this once every few years,” said cardiac surgeon Chris Mehta, MD.

On March 31, Lauterbach underwent an emergency cesarean section and her son Colter was born.

‘The tumor made the birth go so quickly. I grieved the birth plan I had been preparing for for months, while also dealing with the news of my unexpected diagnosis.

“My situation was serious, and as my clinical team worked on a plan to treat my cancer, it was reassuring to know that Mary and the rest of the NICU nurses were taking such wonderful care of our son. My husband (Parker) and I can’t thank them enough,” the mother said.

After her cesarean section, Kalvin Lung MD, a thoracic surgeon at Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute, obtained a sample of the tumor with advanced bronchoscopy.

He discovered that the tumor was a stage 3 melanoma and enlisted the help of Sunandana Chandra, MD, medical oncologist, to find a way to shrink the tumor.

“The tumor sat on top of MaKenna’s heart and spread to the right lung, affecting all three lobes and the entire main trunk of the pulmonary artery.

‘MaKenna’s diagnosis was difficult to make because we weren’t sure if the melanoma started in the chest or somewhere else, and there isn’t much literature or published cases on the best way to treat these types of tumors, so we had to rely on the expertise that we developed here at Northwestern Medicine,” he said.

Lauterbach was then advised to undergo three cycles of immunotherapy before having surgery.

The preoperative immunotherapy helped reduce the size of the tumor from 13 centimeters to nine centimeters.

During the operation, Lung and Mehta managed to remove Lauterbach’s entire right lung, parts of the main pulmonary artery and lymph nodes to save her life.

‘We believe that at some point MaKenna had melanoma on her skin and her own immune system took care of it, but not before one or two cells escaped and eventually started growing in her body.

‘After three doses of immunotherapy, once she had surgery, the surgical specimen showed no viable melanoma cells.

‘MaKenna’s scans currently show no evidence of metastatic melanoma, and the hope is that with continued surveillance we will continue to show that she has no evidence of disease. Medically speaking, this is an amazing story with profound results. These types of results for our patients are what we always hope for,” Chandra explained.

Lauterbach will continue immunotherapy treatments for a year as her cancer remains in stable condition.

This year she celebrated her son’s first Christmas.

“Colter is the best baby,” she said.

‘He is always cheerful and sleeps through the night. I am so grateful to have Colter and Parker in my life, and I can’t say enough about the amazing medical team that saved my life. It’s because of Northwestern Medicine that I’m here today.”