Not Even Stage 4 Breast Cancer Stops This Beautiful Bride

COLUMBIA, SC — Doctors told Laurin Long to move up her wedding date if she wanted to live to exchange vows with her fiance, Michael Bank. But Long, 29, was adamant. Not even a return of stage 4 breast cancer would stop the wedding on a specific date — March 24, three years to the date the couple met.

The Columbia, South Carolina, couple’s story is like many in the modern dating culture, but with some differences. They met on a dating website, where her profile picture showed in her in pink boxing gloves and with a bald head. She had been diagnosed with the disease when she was 26, but beat it back.

Bank was intrigued by the symbolism in the photo and by the woman who posted it.

“Just the fact that she was smiling amid everything going on and willing to put herself out there — I thought she was someone who had to have a love for life,” he told NBC’s “Today” show. “I kept going back and looking at the photos over and over again.”

Now, the disease has spread to her bones, liver and lungs, WLTX-TV reported.

But they were married on March 24 as planned. Long wasn’t ready to concede a technical knockout in her figurative boxing match against cancer.

“We decided that March 24, whatever condition I was in, we were going to do it,” she told “Today.”

“She’s amazing,” Bank, 34, said. “We’ve been focusing on loving each other and loving life.”

Laurin, who lost both of her parents to cancer before she was 20, and her new husband have reason for optimism.

She is participating in a clinical trial and is “on cloud freaking 15,” she posted on Facebook Monday. Two of the tumors her doctors have been tracking have shrunk, and the rest of the metastatic spots are too small to measure, but are stable.

“Basically,” Laurin wrote, emphasizing her next point in all capital letters and multiple exclamation points to convey her ecstacy, “THE CLINICAL TRIAL IS WORKING!!!!!!!!”

Her blood labs came back good, too.

Being loved by Michael is healing in itself, Laurin told Patch.

"He is strong and positive on days I can hardly lift my head," she said. "He makes me laugh and I always think that is the best medicine."

Laurin’s next step is to enjoy time with her husband.

That will probably include travel, one of the interests they learned they share after connecting on the dating website.

“The very first message he sent me was all about travel and we spent the whole afternoon messaging about travel and different details about our life,” Laurin wrote on The Knot. “I went to dinner with some girlfriends that night and I called Mike as soon as I was done and we spoke for hours on the phone (little did I know he didn't like talking on the phone). That night when we got off the phone I messaged him saying I couldn't wait to meet him in person, we decided to meet the next day for Starbucks.”

They got their drinks and took a walk, talking about “the fun and not so fun things going on in our life,” she wrote. “We were straight up blunt and honest and neither one of us still to this day knows how to sugar coat things (no wonder we make a perfect team). I was hoping our coffee date was a dinner date so it could last longer and the other part of me was thinking I might have scared this man away.”

She didn’t. For their second date, he helped her move to her sister’s house.

The rest is a love story made more perfect by the fact that they've already tested the vow to love one another through sickness and health.

Keep this party going?” Michael asked Laurin in June of 2017 when she was finally cancer-free.

When the cancer returned, Michael didn't flinch.

"It is absolutely amazing to be loved by Mike. He is the love of my life and the man of my dreams. I was open and honest with him from day one about my medical history, as when I met him I was going through my first battle with breast cancer," Laurin told Patch. "We decided it was better to be together than be apart just in case something happened.

"No one knows the future and I am just lucky enough that he chose me and have me as his wife! No matter the time frame we are going to make the best of it."

A friend who is a wedding planner stepped in and took care of all the details so she could focus on getting better.

“I could focus on getting the clinical trial (which started in February) and didn't have to worry about the little details,” Laurin told The State newspaper, adding “the doctor said he would work with us to feel my best on the wedding day.”

They pledged their love before 225 guests at the Tree of Life Synagogue. It was a perfect day, resplendent with smiles and a lot of polka dots — Laurin goes by the Polka Dot Queen on Facebook, and says the pattern makes her feel happy. She wears polka dots on Wednesdays to show support for others fighting breast cancer.

"The wedding was amazing," Laurin told The State. "It was the best day ever. We had it on our terms, and we love to celebrate."

Laurin said her experience should be enough to convince anyone who is alone and looking for a soulmate to "put yourself out there."

"Take a chance you never know who you will meet," she told Patch. "I put myself out there on an online dating site when I was bald during my first round with breast cancer and focused on the things I loved and was open and honest from day one. I found the man of my dreams but we focused on having fun, making memories and doing adventures together which are all things both of us love."

Photo courtesy of Tiffany Ellis Photography, used with permission