New mom Jamie Lynne Tarailo was only 34, busy with a 2-year-old toddler and a career, when she felt intermittent shooting pain in her right breast. Yes, her grandmother had breast cancer, but she was older, in her mid-60s, the more common age for the disease.
“I thought to myself, ‘I’m way too young for breast cancer but I need to listen to my symptoms,’” Tarailo said.
Biopsy results showed a slow-growing, less aggressive form of breast cancer, HER2-negative. Improving the outlook even more, it was caught early at stage zero, when it was ductal carcinoma in situ, meaning the cancer was contained within milk ducts and hadn’t spread.
Tarailo and her husband, Jeff, breathed a sigh of relief. To further improve the chances of it not returning, Tarailo chose to have a radical mastectomy, then reconstruction surgery.
Cancer-free years fly by
Before long, the Placerville family continued with their busy lives. Tarailo became a Girl Scout leader. Her daughter, Zoey, and her friends in the troop earned pink breast cancer awareness patches to show their support and raise awareness of breast cancer.
Tarailo even enrolled in nursing school in hopes of advancing her career from licensed vocational nurse to registered nurse.
Fast forward to September 2025. The couple, who were high school sweethearts at Union Mine High School in El Dorado, were preparing for their 20th year high school reunion.
“I went to help my daughter with a puzzle on the floor and felt as if I had pulled a muscle,” Tarailo said.
Burning pain followed and she called her doctor. This time the biopsy results were very worrisome. The cancer was back and it had invaded the lymph nodes. A PET scan also showed the cancer had metastasized, or spread, to her bones.
Devastated, Tarailo was told in February that her breast cancer was at stage four, the most advanced form of the disease.
Cancer care in Cameron Park + UC Davis medical campus
Tarailo was a patient at Marshall where she was also a nurse. She believed in the power of medicine. So, when her Marshall oncologist suggested she also see an oncologist at UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, she was open to learning more. As a UC Davis Cancer Care Network affiliate, Marshall Cancer Center enrolls patients in the latest clinical trials that typically are only available at academic medical centers.
At UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, Tarailo met with Mili Arora, an oncologist based at the UC Davis Health campus in Sacramento. Arora is leading an important clinical trial that she thought would be the best option for Tarailo.
“Dr. Arora was so personable and answered all my questions,” Tarailo said. “I really liked and trusted her.”
FourLight-3 clinical trial becomes first industry-sponsored clinical trial at a CCN
Tarailo agreed to enroll in the first industry-sponsored clinical trial to be available at a CCN.
Sponsored by Pfizer, the FourLight‑3 trial compares a next-generation CDK4 inhibitor called atirmociclib plus letrozole against standard of care CDK4/6 inhibitors combined with letrozole.
Tarailo enrolled in the FourLight-3 trial because she was hopeful for a better treatment option than the standard of care and she knew it would help other women in the future.
“Jamie Lynne is committed to making a difference,” Arora said. “We can’t move the needle in the cancer fight without the bravery of our trial participants and we do think the FourLight-3 clinical trial could transform care for the type of breast cancer that Jamie Lynne’s has been diagnosed with.”