Simone Keat's Journey Through Breast Cancer

Many of you reading this have had your own journey with Cancer.

No one invites it in!

Cancer doesn’t call before it drops by!

It just comes like a bolt of lightning ⚡ and knocks you off your feet and turns your world upside down! It fractures your soul it changes you in ways nothing else has before. It makes you re-evaluate every single day and hold on to those you love ❤ even tighter.

But it doesn’t give you a choice to say - No Thanks!

This is what happened to Simmy - this is her journey so far -

Simone "Simmy" Keat was a few months into her new role with a great company and had just spent two weeks with her twin sister Bek and Mum in Santa Ynez, California after not being able to travel for 4 years due to COVID and a vulnerable immune system - little did she realize why.

On 21 August 2023 after a scheduled ultrasound followed by a biopsy of a small “new” lesion Simmy received the shock diagnosis of invasive breast cancer.

Just the week after, she underwent mastectomy surgery to remove the Cancer and lymph nodes. She had no time to adjust to the diagnosis or to losing her breast it was this -now- or her life - the surgeon said she was prepared to wait 2 weeks to give her time to prepare but 3 was too long and out of the question as it was very aggressively growing.

Whilst the cancer has been removed the pathology showed the cancer was also in her lymph nodes and circulating in her blood vessels.

In the next few weeks Simmy will endure 5 months of intensive chemotherapy starting with a stronger dose in first few months.

She has also had genetic testing to determine if she has either of the BRCA genes or any further genetic mutations to assist in any future treatments / surgery that may be required should any of them come back positive.

Simmy is a radiant, caring, loving, resilient woman and very incredibly wonderful mother of 7 year old identical twin girls and of course identical twin sister of Rebekah.

Whilst her Employer has been wonderfully supportive she has no accrued leave or availability to paid time off. Recently also, after 25 years of income protection through her superannuation, (she cancelled this 4 months ago due to the incredible cost of keeping the insurance going only keeping her death cover) having been told that a spinal cord tumour diagnosed in 2022 were deemed almost certainly benign.

Who would have thought that 4 months later she would wish she had never cancelled the policy?

Life does that to so many of us... the diagnosis is devastating to her financially and her family.

Simmy is unlikely to be able to return to her 30+ hour work week for at least 5-6 months and this along with medical expenses is going to put a big financial strain on her and her little family…

Anyone who has been through chemotherapy knows that it can be a very challenging road, especially for a working mother of two beautiful, very active young girls and little time for self care when you are a Mum.

Our Simmy is a very strong and resilient woman, and we are confident she will face this with fierceness and absolutely shine on the other side.

However, we want to ease the burden just a little bit and assist her in being able to at least manage the financial impacts that she will be encountering as a result of this diagnosis and protracted treatment. We would so appreciate any support for Simmy in any way that you can, even small donations will be very much appreciated.

Thank you for taking the time to read about her journey so far and know that you will take such a huge load off her both financially and mentally if you can help in any way.

We all know stress is the worst thing for healing and we hope by doing this we can contribute to her peace of mind & healing.

In addition to this GoFundMe, we are also selling shirts to support Simmy. A portion of each shirt sold will go to Simmy to help support her financially.

Adult Design #1: No One Fights Alone w/ Team Simmy on Back

Adult Design #2: No One Fights Alone w/ FxxK Cancer on Back

Kids Shirt Design: Superhero Mum