Help Adrienne Carmouche put the “CAN” in cancer!

Hello, I’m Kellar Carmouche. I’m writing this page for Adrienne, the most loving, compassionate, sister and friend ever. On Memorial Day weekend of 2022, Adrienne was diagnosed with Stage IV Pancreatic Neuroendocrine (pNET) cancer while in the ER with unrelenting stomach pain. Worse, multiple tumors had metastasized to her liver, with one being the size of a peach.

Adrienne and I were shocked. Our family and friends received the news with stunned disbelief. At age 43, Adrienne had been to the ER numerous times over the past four years for stomach pain and nausea. She’d been under the care of three different gastroenterologists since 2018 and had several CT scans during that time. Cancer was never mentioned as a possibility.

It seemed even less possible considering everything Adrienne had accomplished the past four years. She and I had been paralegals for a small but very busy firm. Our boss had encouraged Adrienne to go to law school, but in her mid-30s she feared she was too old and the cost was prohibitive. Then in 2017, our father was diagnosed with end-stage heart failure.

Her trepidation concerning law school was overpowered by her determination to help our parents financially. For three years she studied day and night, worked at the office during brief school breaks, and helped our mother with our father. She graduated Cum Laude from Stetson University and passed the bar in 2020. All the while her stomach pain persisted and grew worse. Finally, on the precipice of her new career, her condition rapidly deteriorated.

Neuroendocrine cancer comprises about 5% of all cancers and is not well researched. While it is slow-growing, it is incurable at this time. Following surgery in July, Adrienne began chemotherapy in September. It was discontinued in December when scans showed her tumors had grown. In January, she began treating with an mTOR inhibitor. The hope is to stop the tumor growth to allow for the layering of different chemo treatments and the possibility of being accepted into a clinical trial.

Adrienne’s future is incredibly uncertain, save for the knowledge that she will require treatment the rest of her life—a frightening and overwhelming prospect. The pain she suffers is hard to watch. Yet she has continued to work, albeit in a very diminished capacity, thanks to the generosity and understanding of our boss. Barring improvement, Adrienne will have to take a leave of absence. Meanwhile, she has sizeable out of pocket medical expenses from last year that her health insurance didn’t cover, and out of pocket expenses have begun for this year.

Despite the dire diagnosis and chemo failure, Adrienne is not discouraged. Her oncologist at Moffitt points to the rapid pace of cancer research with countless positive results. If Adrienne survives 5 years, the treatment for pNET will be completely different.

Updates of Adrienne’s cancer journey will be regularly posted. Funds generated from this page will pay for medical expenses not covered by insurance, including clinical trials, along with possible wage loss if Adrienne must take a leave of absence.

We are eternally grateful for any donation or share of this page. Adrienne is blessed with a fighting spirit and CANCER-tainly beat this!