Brandi's Inflammatory Breast Cancer Journey
Donation protected
So that's us in the picture, me (Sean) and Brandi the night of her high school prom I believe in 2001. Excited about what the night was going to bring, and excited to one day marry this girl that I fell completely in love with. Fast forward to last week:
Last week started off really exciting. Our son, Evan, was starting his first day of kindergarten (finally!) and we couldn't wait for him to be around other kids again and learning. He was pretty excited after his first day and loved his new school. Our 10 month old, Amelia, started hitting new baby milestones and started showing us her sassy side...which is pretty intense! Despite the craziness of 2020 and the schools here being basically shutdown, we felt things starting to feel "normal" again.
Then on Wednesday March 10th, things would get flipped upside down. Brandi went in for a mammogram and ultrasound that would turn into needing a pretty excruciating biopsy. We thought what she had was just maybe a fibroma based off a visit with her OB doctor prior. Maybe nothing too serious, but nothing to really worry about. Thinking that it was just a doctor visit, nothing serious at all, I didnt go with her. I was at work when she was there in the doctor office being told that what she had was cancer. I was anxiously waiting for a phone call from her and knew the longer she was in that doctor office, the more likely that this wasnt going to be good. I called, texted...still no answer or reply. My stomach was in knots knowing in my heart this was probably going to be bad news. As soon as she called, I was relieved to hear her voice...but I could tell as soon as I heard her, that she was not okay. She told me she had breast cancer. She was crying and I could feel my heart go to my stomach.
It was a pretty day outside. I was looking out the window when she told me, but everything suddenly just felt dark and my body just went numb. I had no tears. I had no words. I snapped out of it and tried to tell her we will be okay. I was trying to convince her when I wasnt even convinced.
Knowing her symptoms and what she had been experiencing, we had already read up before her OB doctor visit so we had thought it could be Inflammatory Breast Cancer. But if you Google any symptoms you may have then you know Google will tell you you're practically dying and should write your will today. So we kinda stayed away from reading too much into it. It wasnt until it was confirmed that what we initially thought it was, was becoming very real. Breast Cancer is pretty scary, but this particular one is rare and aggressive. It scared both of us to our core. It felt like a death sentence.
How long does she have? What are we going to tell our 6 year old son? I'm going to be a widowed father? This wasnt how things are supposed to be! Am I strong enough to be strong for Brandi and the kids? Will Brandi be strong enough to do this? Are we going to lose the house? How are we going to pay bills? Can she work through treatment? My kids are going to grow up without a mommy? Brandi wont be able to see Evan and Amelia graduate? Get Married? Welcome to the brain of a husband that just found out that the woman he loves was just told she has an aggressive cancer.
A million things run through your mind when you get this news...and none of those things are good. It took a lot of processing and mental fortitude to push through the negative thoughts racing through our minds to get where we are now. Where are we now? Right here, asking for help. As much as we dont like to ask for help, we will need it. We've already received emotional help and support from family and friends, and will continue to need it and are blessed to receive it. What we are faced with now is needing financial help.
For Inflammatory Breast Cancer, it is aggressive...so treatment is aggressive and starts now. Right now, it's at a Stage 3A (Stage 3A, 3B, 3C then the worst being Stage 4.) All Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) automatically starts out at a Stage 3 because of aggressiveness. Stage 3A is the lowest, which is "good." So the next steps are to get a full body CT scan to make sure it's not spreading anywhere else. Then she has to get a port on her chest since the chemo will destroy her veins if administered through IV. She will get chemo once every 3 weeks (6 hours at a time) for 6 cycles. So 18 treatments in all. The chemo she is getting is called TCHP and she'll also get something called HER2 therapy. She has some different variables that respond well to treatments, so that is the silver lining in all of this. If you were going to chose the variables you want with IBC, you'd want these since they do respond well to treatments. Other variables don't respond as well or the doctors dont have as many choices to treat it. After chemo is done, she will have mastectomy surgery. Then radiation. For IBC, there are no options as far as treatment goes...it has to be those 3 things in that order. The surgery will be 4-6 weeks after chemo is completely done. Her tumor is considered a Grade 2 which is middle of the road aggressive. Grade 1 being the lowest and Grade 3 being the highest. Also a bit of a silver lining. She's also going to get a breast a MRI and has had a genealogy test done to see if other family members could be at risk.
To get an idea of costs...just to find out that she has this horrible disease, it cost nearly $1,000.
I'm currently employed full-time with health insurance, so that is also a silver lining. Once treatments start, she will more than likely miss time at work and we will lose income. We hope and pray that neither of us will have to miss much work time for this, but I've come up with the goal amount to help us with the medical costs, deductible fees, missed work, gas needed to go to doctor visits...basically to keep our heads above water through all of this.
Thank you for reading all of this and thank you for any donations. If possible, we will personally thank you. I know everyone is still going through rough times so not all can donate, so if you can...please please pray for Brandi and for us!
Last week started off really exciting. Our son, Evan, was starting his first day of kindergarten (finally!) and we couldn't wait for him to be around other kids again and learning. He was pretty excited after his first day and loved his new school. Our 10 month old, Amelia, started hitting new baby milestones and started showing us her sassy side...which is pretty intense! Despite the craziness of 2020 and the schools here being basically shutdown, we felt things starting to feel "normal" again.
Then on Wednesday March 10th, things would get flipped upside down. Brandi went in for a mammogram and ultrasound that would turn into needing a pretty excruciating biopsy. We thought what she had was just maybe a fibroma based off a visit with her OB doctor prior. Maybe nothing too serious, but nothing to really worry about. Thinking that it was just a doctor visit, nothing serious at all, I didnt go with her. I was at work when she was there in the doctor office being told that what she had was cancer. I was anxiously waiting for a phone call from her and knew the longer she was in that doctor office, the more likely that this wasnt going to be good. I called, texted...still no answer or reply. My stomach was in knots knowing in my heart this was probably going to be bad news. As soon as she called, I was relieved to hear her voice...but I could tell as soon as I heard her, that she was not okay. She told me she had breast cancer. She was crying and I could feel my heart go to my stomach.
It was a pretty day outside. I was looking out the window when she told me, but everything suddenly just felt dark and my body just went numb. I had no tears. I had no words. I snapped out of it and tried to tell her we will be okay. I was trying to convince her when I wasnt even convinced.
Knowing her symptoms and what she had been experiencing, we had already read up before her OB doctor visit so we had thought it could be Inflammatory Breast Cancer. But if you Google any symptoms you may have then you know Google will tell you you're practically dying and should write your will today. So we kinda stayed away from reading too much into it. It wasnt until it was confirmed that what we initially thought it was, was becoming very real. Breast Cancer is pretty scary, but this particular one is rare and aggressive. It scared both of us to our core. It felt like a death sentence.
How long does she have? What are we going to tell our 6 year old son? I'm going to be a widowed father? This wasnt how things are supposed to be! Am I strong enough to be strong for Brandi and the kids? Will Brandi be strong enough to do this? Are we going to lose the house? How are we going to pay bills? Can she work through treatment? My kids are going to grow up without a mommy? Brandi wont be able to see Evan and Amelia graduate? Get Married? Welcome to the brain of a husband that just found out that the woman he loves was just told she has an aggressive cancer.
A million things run through your mind when you get this news...and none of those things are good. It took a lot of processing and mental fortitude to push through the negative thoughts racing through our minds to get where we are now. Where are we now? Right here, asking for help. As much as we dont like to ask for help, we will need it. We've already received emotional help and support from family and friends, and will continue to need it and are blessed to receive it. What we are faced with now is needing financial help.
For Inflammatory Breast Cancer, it is aggressive...so treatment is aggressive and starts now. Right now, it's at a Stage 3A (Stage 3A, 3B, 3C then the worst being Stage 4.) All Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) automatically starts out at a Stage 3 because of aggressiveness. Stage 3A is the lowest, which is "good." So the next steps are to get a full body CT scan to make sure it's not spreading anywhere else. Then she has to get a port on her chest since the chemo will destroy her veins if administered through IV. She will get chemo once every 3 weeks (6 hours at a time) for 6 cycles. So 18 treatments in all. The chemo she is getting is called TCHP and she'll also get something called HER2 therapy. She has some different variables that respond well to treatments, so that is the silver lining in all of this. If you were going to chose the variables you want with IBC, you'd want these since they do respond well to treatments. Other variables don't respond as well or the doctors dont have as many choices to treat it. After chemo is done, she will have mastectomy surgery. Then radiation. For IBC, there are no options as far as treatment goes...it has to be those 3 things in that order. The surgery will be 4-6 weeks after chemo is completely done. Her tumor is considered a Grade 2 which is middle of the road aggressive. Grade 1 being the lowest and Grade 3 being the highest. Also a bit of a silver lining. She's also going to get a breast a MRI and has had a genealogy test done to see if other family members could be at risk.
To get an idea of costs...just to find out that she has this horrible disease, it cost nearly $1,000.
I'm currently employed full-time with health insurance, so that is also a silver lining. Once treatments start, she will more than likely miss time at work and we will lose income. We hope and pray that neither of us will have to miss much work time for this, but I've come up with the goal amount to help us with the medical costs, deductible fees, missed work, gas needed to go to doctor visits...basically to keep our heads above water through all of this.
Thank you for reading all of this and thank you for any donations. If possible, we will personally thank you. I know everyone is still going through rough times so not all can donate, so if you can...please please pray for Brandi and for us!
Organizer
Sean Smith
Organizer
Port Wentworth, GA