Support Heidi’s fight against breast cancer

To all my friends and family, my new family is experiencing an unexpected and extremely stressful medical situation. Heidi had her routine mammogram on December 1, 2023, which showed several abnormalities, then lead to a few more in depth mammograms and an ultrasound. These findings suggested for Heidi to have a stereotactic biopsy on December 12, 2023. As we waited patiently on pins and needles, all of Heidi’s 12 biopsies came back positive for cancer. We received the dreaded call on Friday afternoon on December 15, 2023, this was the longest weekend to have to wait to meet with her surgeon the following Wednesday. Heidi had a double mastectomy with 5 lymph nodes removed on January 19, 2024. This was an incredibly intense procedure that requires a lengthy healing period, including Heidi getting vertigo for 6 weeks after surgery because of the anesthesia and being immobilized the first 6 weeks following the procedure. Heidi has lost a significant amount of strength and range of motion in her arms and body during the time of recovery. Once Heidi started to recover enough to move her arms, she started physical therapy to regain the strength and range of motion lost while she was immobilized and will continue this through her second needed surgery on April 30, 2024, which will require Heidi to be off from work up to another 4 weeks.

This has been, and for the foreseeable future will continue to be a difficult time for our family, especially for the children, who are aware of their mom’s condition and understand that this next year will look different than expected. We are doing our best to adjust to the challenges this health crisis presents while still maintaining some sense of normalcy. We are so grateful to have such an amazing support system of people who are reaching out and asking ways that they can help us out.

At this time, our family is facing between medical expenses, time off from work, utility/house expenses, and incidental expenses related to remission and healing period.

As a lot of you know, Heidi and I have been together for a short 2 years and I can’t imagine my life without her.

Heidi has always been dedicated to her two beautiful daughters, her family and friends, and her career as a nurse. I’m sure many of you reading this know this about her. I have coordinated this GoFundMe as a way for friends and loved ones to support Heidi and her children. Heidi has a college freshman and a junior in high school and this support will greatly alleviate many of our hardships and burdens we are all facing. Together, we can ease some of the stress on our family and help Heidi on her path to recovery.