Teresa’s Fight Against Sarcoma!

Teresa's ready to kick cancer's a** AGAIN!!! We came together and helped her two years ago to kick cancer’s a**. Let’s rally together and help her again!

My name is Lauren Harrell (Mortenson) and I have been blessed with being friends with Teresa since kindergarten. She is by far one of the strongest people I have ever known, and I know many of you can agree with me about that. She is a great friend, family member, and supporter to all around her, always putting everyone before herself. Now it's our time to help her! Over the next few weeks, Teresa will undergo chemotherapy and radiation to kill any remaining cells in her arm. The next 3-4 months she will be unable to work while undergoing her treatments. During this time, medical bills will continue to grow and other bills will need to be paid.  She needs our support, now more than ever, while she does some major fighting. Time to fight like a girl!

All funds raised will go directly to Teresa to make her journey of Kicking Cancer's Ass a little bit easier! Thanks for your support in helping Teresa during this time.
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Teresa’s Words and Updated Story (Sept 19, 2018):
I have been waiting to update until I had a clear vision of what my next path of treatment would be.

My doctor did say that when she saw the tumor during surgery that she immediately knew it was cancer. As I stated before, the surgery was more complicated than she first anticipated. The tumor was all intertwined in my nerve so it was cut in surgery. My index finger can no longer bend and I have lost feeling again in some of my fingers.

After receiving the pathology report, it was determined that there is in fact a reoccurrence of synovial sarcoma. The surgeon did get clear margins in this surgery. However, the margins were less than 1 millimeter which is very concerning; they prefer margins to be measured in centimeters when dealing with sarcomas.

So my next course of treatment will be 6 1/2 weeks of radiation with 4 rounds of aggressive chemo to kill any remaining cells that could be floating around in my arm.

As before, a round of chemo consists of 3 weeks. The first week is M-F, 5 hours a day where I receive the actual chemo drug. The second week is where I feel the full effects of the drug; where I am sick and tired. This is also when we have to watch my blood counts & immune system. The middle of the third week is when I mostly bounce back and get that last weekend to kind of feel like a person again before starting over on Monday.

I have decided to start chemo while doing radiation, so the weeks I receive the drug, I will go from chemo to radiation. I want to get this process over with and my doctors feel that this is a good idea.

My amazing medical team all agree that this is the best plan of attack to try and save my arm and keep me cancer free.

So here we go!!

#strongerthansarcoma #keeponfighting #savingTeresasarm #cancersucks
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Teresa’s Words and Updated Story (Aug 20, 2018):

It seems I haven’t updated on this page since I went NED (No Evidence of Disease) back in December of 2016!!

I know a lot of you are friends with me on my personal page so you saw the updates as they went on. . 2017 was full of firsts like bending my fingers after so much therapy, going back to work wearing wigs, tons of milestones in hair growth, ending a 10 year career and starting a new one and best of all 2017 was still NED!! (No Evidence of Disease)

Every 3 months, as I continue my journey, I have scans done to make sure I am still clear. I have an MRI of the elbow(original cancer spot) I also have a CT scan of the chest because if my type of cancer spreads anywhere it most likely spreads to the lungs.

Around the end of February of this year, as some of you may know we found a small 7mm spot/nodule in my lungs on my chest ct scan. I met with another amazing doctor on my cancer journey, a cardio thoracic surgeon who thought best course was to go in and take the nodule out. In mid March I had lung surgery which went very smoothly! The nodule was tested and did come back Cancer. So my NED started over! The good news is in that situation, they call it “cherry picking” where they just go in and pick it out! No chemo or radiation needed!

After that I continued on my 3 month scans, each time with “scan anxiety” and have been okay.

Until this last MRI I just had on my elbow. . It seems that a new 2.4cm mass is growing in the same spot as before. My surgeon has decided best course of action is to start with surgery. After all there is a chance it’s not cancer so it needs to be tested. (Ha!! Let’s call a spade a spade here!!) The surgery is scheduled for Tuesday, August 28th in the afternoon

The after surgery is still an unknown, I’m praying for no more chemo, however I have a very realistic bad feeling that that is going to be the case.

There is a quote that has always resonated with me on my cancer journey, and I truly believe it to be true, “When someone has cancer, the whole family and everyone who loves them does too.” I feel with each new diagnosis it doesn’t just get harder on me it gets harder on my family.

I was reluctant to share my journey this year because it wasn’t as “big” a deal I didn’t have chemo etc this time but man has it been a hard year and it just got harder. So I’m sharing with all of you amazing people because I really did feel the positive vibes and prayers from this group and it seems that I just might need them again.

Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart for your continued support.
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Teresa's Original Story (October 2016) 

In December, not long after carpal tunnel surgery, Teresa noticed a mass on her elbow. It was just annoying at that time and didn't allow her to fully straighten her arm. The doctor said we would keep an eye on it and maybe do an MRI in a month or so.

Teresa's hand was not getting any better even months after the surgery so she went back to check up and also brought up the elbow. The elbow had started to give her some pain. An MRI was ordered along with an EMG. The EMG tested the nerves and she was informed that the nerves were waking up and the hand pain should go away and strength should come back.

The elbow pain kept getting worse and after 2 MRI attempts (closterphobic and too much pain to leave elbow still) and some time the pain was progressively getting worse. Finally after not being able lift her arm she went to the ER for pain management. In the ER Teresa was given something for the pain and had an MRI.

After the MRI the ER doctor came in and informed Teresa the mass was a tumor and the word cancer was first used. Teresa was referred to an Orthopedic Oncologist. She met with her and had a biopsy done to confirm. The biopsy results came back as Sarcoma Cancer and thus starts the plan of attack. Teresa had scans on the rest of her body and the good news is the cancer is only in her arm!