When Taryn Lloyd was just 25, she felt a lump in her breast. Always adamant about doing self-checks, she pointed it out to her doctor.
She was told not to worry about it, that she was young, she had dense breasts, that it was totally normal.
“I didn’t know any better,” says Lloyd, who lives in Winter Park.
But year after year, she brought it up, and was met with the same responses. She was never sent for any additional tests.
Then, four years later, Lloyd had a bad feeling. She insisted that her doctor send her for an imaging test. In 2019, she was diagnosed with Stage 3 invasive ductal carcinoma breast cancer.
Lloyd was on the verge of a move to Colorado, but instead, used the money to buy a dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Finn she says was the best decision she ever made.
“He’d lick my bald head and just make me laugh, and that got me through the first diagnosis,” says Lloyd, “and then this most recent time.”
Lloyd was diagnosed again, in 2022, this time with Stage 3 triple negative breast cancer. This after she had brought her concerns up to her oncologist, who told her “It’s probably just delayed radiation side effects.”
“It’s hard when you have a lot of male doctors telling you about your body and dismissing things,” says Lloyd. “But they are human beings as well. They make mistakes. What it taught me is that you have to be the loudest advocate for yourself.”
That positive attitude is one of the reasons Lloyd was chosen as a 2024 grant recipient for a Fly Again Foundation (FAF) Dream Vacation.
Taryn Lloyd, left, and Jessenia Cisneros, right (with her mother), undergo treatment for breast cancer. Both were diagnosed before they were 40 years old, and both had to push their doctors to get the tests that revealed their diagnoses. They stress the importance of self-advocacy.
FAF was formed to honor the spirit of Lisa Marzullo, who, like Lloyd, pushed on in the face of a triple negative cancer diagnosis. Throughout her treatments, Marzullo asked one question: When can I fly again? The foundation was founded in 2021, on the anniversary of the day Marzullo passed away.
In honor of Marzullo’s passion for travel, the association today provides grants to young women battling breast cancer, realizing their dreams of traveling the world. The grants are entirely donation-driven.
“She had places to go and people to see. She had commitments. And she wasn’t going to let breast cancer get in her way,” says co-founder Charlotte Maumus, a boss, friend and work travel partner to Marzullo. “We really look for that resilient spirit in the applicants.”
“Like what Taryn spoke of, that’s also what Lisa had to do,” Maumus continues. “She was deemed too young to have breast cancer, even when she had a lump in her armpit, and she had a lot of pain. She had to push her doctors. We want to be installing hope and giving that flight to the fight.”
“It’s also really important for us to be raising awareness that breast cancer affects those under 40,” adds Maumus. “Nobody should be deemed too young to have breast cancer.”
Jessenia Cisneros, a resident of Ocoee, is the second 2024 Dream Vacation recipient. Cisneros found out she had the breast cancer (BRCA 1) gene in 2017. She pushed for the genetic test because her grandmother died of ovarian cancer and her mother had cancer twice. Like Lloyd, she found a lump while doing a self-exam; Cisneros had a biopsy in 2022 and was diagnosed with Stage 3B triple negative breast cancer.
“I felt like everything happened so fast and I didn’t really have time to process anything,” says Cisneros, who immediately underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments. At the time of this interview in August 2024, Cisneros has had six surgeries. And the doctors have suggested more, pushing her to get implants.
“I was at the point where I just couldn’t do it anymore,” says Cisneros. “I was tired of being told ‘this is going to be the last surgery’ and then I’d have another one. I ended up with cellulitis at one point, which I didn’t know you could get in your breast.”
Because of that traumatizing experience, Cisneros says her mental health has taken a plunge. But she’s fought every day to maintain it, although sometimes having to go to ridiculous lengths.
“With every single practitioner,” says Cisneros, “it was getting to the point where I was saying some pretty morbid things to get them to listen to me. It took a lot of self-advocacy.”
Another one of the qualifiers FAF looks at in giving out its Dream Vacations is who will be the recipient’s travel companion. The inspiration is a trip that Lisa and David Marzullo took to Australia. It is one that David Marzullo, FAF’s co-founder, cherishes.
Lisa and David Marzullo on a trip to Australia, which came after Lisa’s treatment. David Marzullo hopes FAF’s Dream Vacations give others the same sense of hope as the Australia trip did him and Lisa.
“My trip to Australia with Lisa, after her breast cancer treatment, was a beacon of hope at the end of a very long tunnel,” says Marzullo. “It brought up the light we desperately needed.”
“Our travel grants are designed to offer the same sense of hope to recipients,” he adds. “We also recognize the importance of celebrating these journeys with someone who fought alongsXide them during their battle with breast cancer. That’s why our grants include a travel companion of their choice—whether it be a caregiver, close friend or relative—who stood by their side through one of the greatest challenges they’ve ever faced.”
In Cisneros’ case, it’s her cancer-survivor mother, who she hopes to empower through the trip to Hawaii’s northern shore.
“I grew up watching movies, [thinking that] it looks so healing to go to Hawaii,” says Cisneros. “I feel like Hawaii is the perfect spot where we can just go and relax.”
Lloyd, who is traveling with her boyfriend, has chosen Iceland for her Dream Vacation.
“I need to get as far away from the heat as possible and I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights,” she says. “I feel like I’m still going to be having hot flashes [from my drug regimen] and every time it happens, I can just go throw myself in the snow.”
Cisneros and Lloyd are FAF’s fourth and fifth grant recipients. The foundation has given out $75,000 in grants since its inception.
In the meantime, says Cisneros, it’s all about being as authentic and present as she can be, staying active on social media and interacting with her “breasties,” such as a friend in Rhode Island she interacts with every day.
“Once you find that good community, it’s amazing,” says Cisneros. “I’m leaning into those relationships. It helps me stay chipper and in a better mood.”
Making that community accessible to everyone is one of the messages Cisneros and Lloyd hope come from their stories.
“I really hope it’s a stepping stone towards raising more awareness and bringing these topics up to the table so we can make the conversation a little bit easier, less isolating, more supportive and more inclusive,” says Lloyd.
“We just need to get the conversation going,” says Cisneros. “I want to be able to speak to all the little girls that come after us and be there for them and tell them, ‘you know what? You’re not crazy baby. You’re not crazy,’” she adds.