Cervivor School

Hi, my name is Kellie Defelice. I live in Quincy, MA. Last July, I was diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer. I am a teacher, wife and a mom. My daughter, Alana, left for college 400 miles away the day after my first chemo and radiation treatment. I did 27 radiations, 5 cisplatin chemos and then 5 brachytherapy (internal radiation). I then had to wait 3 months to see if it worked. I was declared NED (no evidence of disease) in January but unfortunately my stage has an extremely high rate of recurrence so I was put on a chemo cocktail of taxol, carboplatin and keytruda (immunotherapy) to try and prevent it coming back. I had another clean scan in April and now I’m just on keytruda every 3 weeks for at least a year maybe two. I’m still scared of when it decided to come back but praying it stays away.

I was just accepted into Cervivor school. I will get to meet amazing ladies also surviving and fighting cervical cancer and also I will be trained on becoming an advocate to teach others about preventing cervical cancer, advocating to get more prescreening and preventive measures to help other women not be in this situation and so much more. This is so important to me. I need to meet others who know what I’ve felt and what I’m feeling and I also want to do what I can to help stop cervical cancer. I’ve lost too many Teal Sisters to this disease and I don’t want to lose any more.

I am fundraising to help pay for my flight, hotel and expenses. If I raise extra funds, I will help my Teal Sisters trying to attend as well. Thank you for any support you can give me!