Support for Stephanie

My name is Stephanie Wiseman, I am 27 years old, a mom to a beautiful now 1 year old son named Camden, a wife of 3 years to an amazing man named Nick, and I have Breast Cancer.

You may be thinking a phrase I have been hearing a lot lately, "buy you're so young" unfortunately as we all know too well, Cancer has no boundaries.

This whole thing began in late February. I was laying in bed one night and for some reason I had an overwhelming feeling that I should do a self-breast exam, it sounds crazy, I know, but I was never very good at doing them routinely and when this thought came to me I went with it.
If there is one thing I have learned in life it's whenever my gut tells me to do something or check something its usually for a good reason. I believe I have a guardian angel that gave me a little nudge to check.
It only took seconds before there is was, the dreaded lump. Right away I woke my husband up and had him feel it, we both agreed that I would get in and get it checked but we shouldn't worry because it's probably nothing.
The very next day I was able to make an appointment for later that week to get in to my OB/GYN and have her check it out.
As my Doctor was examining she was having a hard time finding what I was feeling, I placed her hand on it and it was like a light bulb went off, there it was. She had me go right away to the wonderful Women's Health Center at St. Joes to have an Ultrasound.
The way that it works there is they do the test and have Doctors read the results right there. I began to get nervous when it started taking a while. The nurse then came to get me and brought me into a room with a Doctor. He sat down and said that he had shown my ultrasound to 3 other Doctors and they were pretty sure it was a growth called a fibro adenoma but he recommended that it come out. They then set me up to have the lump removed April 10th.
Surgery went well, my doctor thought she was looking at a rare non-cancerous tumor that tends to come back so she took extra tissue around the tumor to be safe.
April 12th, 2 days later I received the pathology results, it was not the tumor she thought it was, it was Cancer. All I could say was, "uh huh, uh huh, yeah, uh huh" It felt like a dream. She said the next step was to take some lymph nodes to make sure it hadn't spread. Meanwhile we find out that I have Triple Negative Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. Meaning it is non-responsive to all three hormone receptors. It started in the milk duct and grew out into my tissue. It was Graded a 3. Meaning it is the fastest growing on a scale of 1-3. 6 days after my lumpectomy I went in for my lymph node surgery. She took 4 lymph nodes and I am happy to report they are all clear or cancer.
The day after my lymph node surgery I met with a fertility specialist. I had learned along with my diagnosis of Cancer the chemo therapy that accompanies it has a good chance of causing infertility. I feel very blessed to have Camden, but my husband and I so badly want to have a brother or sister for him. We had planned on trying in the fall, until now. Now, we may not be able to get pregnant for a couple of years or ever naturally.
The fertility doctor highly recommended that my husband and I freeze embryos. Thank you to everyone who helped Nick and I were able to freeze 3 beautiful little embryos :) They are there waiting for us! Thank you form the bottom of my heart to everyone who pitched in to help Nick, Camden and I.
My treatment plan is as follows, 4 rounds of chemo therapy, the first one being May 17th and then every 3 weeks I will go in for another round. Following the completion of my chemo, I will be undergoing a double mastectomy with reconstruction.
There is still a long road ahead of us and things have been extra hard now that I am no longer bringing in an income, after not qualifying for FMLA my employer decided to end my employment, I do not qualify for unemployment due to not being available and unable to work a full time job during this chemo/surgery process. We have decided to leave our donation site up, we have RAISED THE GOAL but only with the intentions that maybe it this site will reach different people who may have not seen it before and can help, we are so blessed to have had everyone that did, come together and raise an incredible about of money in such a little time. You are all forever our angels :)
Should it reach anyone who has to the means to help our family and would like to, we would appreciate all of the support we can get, not only in the monetary value but in prayers and encouragement too. It is not an easy thing for us to ask for help, but I know that right now we can really, truly, use some.
At the vary least, PLEASE share my story! I would like to use my experience to remind young women to please pay attention to your bodies. Never brush something off, and always be your own advocate!