He Had Breast Cancer—Then His Wife Was Diagnosed Too

Michael and Xio Caruso’s love story started out with a lie—or, to be more specific, two lies. It was 2007 and both fudged the truth on their Match.com dating profiles. Xio shaved two years off her age, saying she was 43 instead of 45, and Michael said he was divorced when, in fact, he was separated at the time. But when they met in real life, they both fessed up, forgave the other for not being completely honest, and quickly became inseparable. In November 2009, two years after meeting, they tied the knot.For the first seven-plus years of their marriage, things went pretty much how they’d planned. They moved from Texas to New York to be closer to their aging parents and Michael, who had retired from the Navy in 2008, began working as a financial advisor, and Xio continued her career as a 401(k) administrator and consultant. Then one day in January 2017, something strange happened. “I was doing a stretch along the doorframe in my house and felt a tightness under my right nipple,” says Michael. “I felt it, and there was a lump there, but I thought it was a lipoma, which is just a benign fatty deposit. I’d had one on my lower abdomen removed in my 20s, and I assumed that was what this was too.”At Xio’s urging Michael went to his primary care doctor and was immediately sent to get a mammogram and then a biopsy. “We thought nothing would come of it and it would just be fatty tissue,” says Xio. They even hopped on a plane right after to meet up with Michael’s parents in Florida not feeling overly worried. But while they were away, they got a call from Michael’s doctor: “I’m sorry—you have stage 2 breast cancer.”Xio and Michael flew home and doctors began a series of tests, including checking for BRCA gene mutations to help inform his treatment plan. “His mom was a breast cancer survivor and was positive for the BRCA gene mutation, but it never dawned on anybody that it would get passed on to Michael,” says Xio. But the test came back positive: Michael had the BRCA2 mutation.They also tested the tumor to see what kind of breast cancer Michael had, and learned it was triple-positive. That means it was growing in response to the hormones estrogen and progesterone, as well as the protein HER2. This meant his treatment plan would need to be aggressive. “We did a mastectomy of my right breast—it’s a straight incision under my armpit to the center of my chest, and they removed the breast tissue,” he says.He also started chemotherapy. “It was pretty bad,” says Michael. “I’d get it on Thursday; by Saturday I wouldn’t be able to do anything, even get out of bed. By Monday morning I’d be able to make it through the day—and then I’d have to do it all again on Thursday.” His hair fell out, he felt nauseous, he couldn’t sleep very well, and he was taking steroids that made his face look swollen.Michael had a mastectomy of his right breast. Michael and Xio CarusoFinally, after three different rounds of chemo, Michael was slated to wrap up that portion of his treatment in the spring of 2018. His cancer had responded well, and he and Xio were excited to put this phase behind them. “We had made plans to finally start enjoying a condo we’d bought in Florida,” says Xio. But life had other ideas. Xio went in for her routine mammogram, and her doctor told her they thought they saw something. “I have dense breasts and had lumps and bumps in the past, and it’s always been fine,” she says. “But this time it was breast cancer.” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “It hit me hard because I saw what Michael had gone through,” she says. “But Michael said not to worry, that we’d deal with it.”Xio’s tests revealed some good news: She had stage 1, nonaggressive breast cancer, and her medical team determined she didn’t need chemotherapy. “My choice was a lumpectomy or mastectomy,” she says. “I didn’t want to worry about the cancer coming back, so I went with a double mastectomy.” She scheduled it for right after Michael’s chemotherapy would end, in May 2018. In some ways the fact that Xio’s treatment wasn’t as intense as Michael’s messed with her mind. “I felt guilty,” she says. “People looked at me like I didn’t have cancer because I didn’t have chemo, but mentally, I was destroyed. Cancer is cancer.”As spring came to an end, things seemed to be turning around. Michael was told that there was no longer any evidence of cancer in his body and Xio had her surgery. Then it was finally time to transition to life post-cancer. But they didn’t want to keep their story to themselves, so they began doing everything they could to spread the word about male breast cancer. They joined the advocacy group the Male Breast Cancer Global Alliance (then called the Male Breast Cancer Coalition) and shared their story at health fairs. “There were a lot of prejudices that would come up, like that breast cancer only affects gay men,” says Michael. “But I felt like I wanted to share and educate.”These days the couple does less advocacy work. Instead, they’re focused on each other. “I appreciate what I’ve got and how lucky I am,” says Michael. “Being a guy I probably would have dismissed the lump as nothing, and then I would have had stage 3 or 4 cancer by the time I went to the doctor. I appreciate Xio pushing me to get it looked at.” Now they’ve made it their mission to live it up. “In the last couple of years, we have started taking cruises and are enjoying being retired,” Xio says. “We’ve decided to take little trips here and there just to live.”Back in 2009, when they got married, Michael and Xio never would have imagined that they’d both get breast cancer, but they are now able to see the silver lining. “I think it made our marriage stronger,” says Xio. “We became a dynamic team—we propped each other up and were each other’s supporters.”