Rachel
2021 Story
At the age of 28 in 2018, I was given the unthinkable news, "You have breast cancer". while having no family history of this, it was hard to take in or even accept. I endured 7 months of heavy chemotherapy treatments, 35 (almost 40) rounds of radiation, a right mastectomy, followed by 17 lymph nodes removed in my right arm (7 positive with cancer). I thought this nightmare was over. Wrong.
October of 2019 I got into a horrible car crash and had to receive physical therapy. During treatments, I began to get worse, not better. That being said, my healthcare team ordered an MRI for my back. A few days later the doctor looked at me and said, "When's the last time you saw your oncologist?". I looked around the room for help or a sign. Or for hope that this was wrong. She informed me that I have a mass on my spinal cord and I needed to go to the ER immediately. It turned out it was in my whole spine, spinal cord, hips, ribs, neck, sternum and as of recent, my skull. I endured grueling trial and errors of many IV chemo, that failed along with a few oral chemo that had also failed.
But as of January 2021, I have been successful on my current oral chemo, and I hope my story will give others with stage 4 hope. You can do this, I promise.
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