Taylor Keegan has a lot going on in her life. She’s planning a wedding while working full time in the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office’s social worker program and training a 9-month-old puppy.

But the thing keeping the Crystal Lake woman most busy over the past five months has been treatment for her triple-negative ductile carcinoma – breast cancer.

The hope is that her cancer treatment, including a double mastectomy with reconstruction, will be completely healed before she walks down the aisle in May.

“I shared that with my medical team, that I wanted to have hair and breasts” for the big day, Keegan said.

Diagnosed in June at just 26, Keegan had her last course of chemotherapy Tuesday. On Sunday, she will join others who’ve dealt with breast cancer and ring the bell at Soldier Field as the Bears recognize the survivors.

She is one of 10 breast cancer patients who will be honored at the Chicago Bears’ Real Bears Fans Wear Pink game, according to a news release from Advocate Health Care, which is coordinating the event.

It would be easy to suspect Keegan was invited onto the field because of her younger brother, Trevor Keegan. Drafted in 2024 by the Philadelphia Eagles, the Crystal Lake South High School graduate now plays for the Dallas Cowboys.

But Taylor Keegan is a star in her own right. Last year, her work as a police social worker was highlighted in a special Northwest Herald tribute section called “Thank You, First Responders."

Since she received her diagnosis, she’s been posting updates on TikTok and Instagram, hoping to bring attention to the disease and let other young women facing the cancer know that they are not alone.

“I am open with sharing on social media with as much positivity as I can,” Keegan said.

She had an account on both platforms but was not a frequent poster until July 1, when she started chemotherapy. Now, she gets messages and responses from women all over, often also diagnosed in their 20s.

What she tells them, Keegan said, is to “take a deep breath, and it will be OK. You are allowed to feel all of the emotions, but take one day at a time.”

The road to her diagnosis started in April, when she was home from work with a high fever. Keegan did a self-exam to check her lymph nodes – her mother is a school nurse – and found a lump. She got in to see her obstetrician/gynecologist on May 7, and got an ultrasound scheduled at Northwestern Medicine’s Gavers Breast Center on May 30.

Before that appointment was over, suggestions were made that she find a breast surgeon, Keegan said. She had five biopsies and got the news June 4 – triple-negative invasive ductile carcinoma.

She switched over to Advocate Health Care because of family connections, but before she started chemo, there was something else Keegan needed to do. She began fertility treatments, knowing that chemotherapy treatments may cause infertility. In about two weeks, she was able to freeze 26 ova.

But rather than going into the typical regimen, Keegan is instead part of a study looking at a shorter chemo regimen. The Phase III SCARLET study – which stands for shorter anthracycline-free chemo-immunotherapy adapted to pathological response – requires just 18 weeks of chemotherapy rather than the standard 24 weeks, said her oncologist, Dr. Sandeep Chunduri.

“In layman’s terms ... it is the most aggressive type of breast cancer that we see,” Chunduri said, adding that there is a tendency for reoccurrence. “We have to be somewhat aggressive with therapy.”

The shorter regimen has shown success and does more to protect the heart and liver from potentially negative side effects, Chunduri said.

The next step is the mastectomy, followed by immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitor drug Keytruda.

Keegan should be completely finished with all of her therapy just weeks before the wedding.

Her support system – her friends, family, co-workers and online community – have been amazing as she moves through the health care system, Keegan said. But her background as a social worker is part of why she wants to make sure other women feel supported too.

“There is not a how-to book with this. There is never a ‘how to do this’ when you are 26 years old,” she said. “But a positive mindset and a positive outlook will have positive results.”