Help Lauren and family

My wife Lauren was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer in the fall of 2020 a year after the birth of our daughter Zoe in 2019. In October 2020 she started chemotherapy and showed good progress. After finishing intensive chemotherapy she had a radical mastectomy of her right breast in the spring of 2021 and following recovery she began radiation and another cycle of chemotherapy. Showing great response to her treatments she scheduled her reconstruction surgery at the beginning of 2022. After reconstruction surgery, she was told her cancer was in remission in June of 2022. Shortly after Lauren and I became pregnant with our second child (we were told this would be impossible) but we took it as an amazing blessing.

As the year went on the pregnancy continued and everything was seemingly great. However, at the end of October Lauren was short of breath even while doing the most simplistic things. One night her breathing got increasingly worse and we decided to go to the ER. While there a scan was taken off her chest and we discovered her right lung had collapsed due to a collection of fluid in her lung cavity. A test was run on the fluid, and it came back that it had cancerous properties, so Lauren’s oncologist team was brought back in to work on a plan.

Due to the pregnancy, Lauren’s choices were limited for what chemo she could take that wouldn’t affect our baby and this came down to two different drugs: one which would put stress on her heart or a natural version. After the choice to try the natural version, Lauren had a seizure during her first infusion and we had to use the second option drug that we were told would put more stress on her heart.

Lauren went through numerous chemotherapy treatments until she needed to stop 8 weeks before the birth of the baby. During the treatments, our baby was doing great and it looked like Lauren was once again doing fine.

Cooper, (the name we chose for our son) was born on January 24th and was healthy and Lauren was doing well. On the 25th both Lauren and Cooper were released from the hospital however that night Lauren began to feel very dizzy and couldn’t lie down without extreme nausea. I took Lauren back to the ER after ongoing concerns about how she was feeling. After multiple hours of being in the ER, Lauren got a CT scan of her brain to see if it was something neurological causing the symptoms. The results were both heartbreaking and unfathomable, it was discovered she has 30-40 small cancerous lesions on her brain and most are concentrated on her brain stem causing numerous health issues for Lauren.

On January 27th Lauren had an appointment with radiation oncology to begin her steps to fight this aggressive form of cancer with the plan to begin aggressive chemotherapy in February.

I am here asking for help. We have begun to deplete our financial resources due to medical costs, loss of work, and many other extraneous needs. All funds given will be used towards medical treatment bills and travel expenses to and from Rochester for Lauren’s treatment.

We appreciate all of your ongoing love and support for both Lauren but also our family during this difficult time.