GRANT #26 | STEPHANIE | BREAST CANCER WARRIOR

SPONSORED BY

The below is the story we received from her social worker and we can’t do a better job at explaining how deserved this grant is for Stephanie.

Stephanie is a 29 year old very sweet young woman who was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma of the right breast stage IIB in March of this year and is BRCA 1 positive. She was diagnosed after she felt a lump in her breast. She had recently gotten the COVID vaccine and felt pain in her breast, a lump and felt exhausted - she contributed this to the vaccine and working many hours as a nurse on the COVID-19 positive floor. After further testing to include mammograms, ultrasounds, biopsies, CT scan and an MRI she was diagnosed with breast cancer, much to her surprise as she is so young. 

Stephanie's treatment will entail 16 chemo treatments, a double mastectomy and additional surgeries for reconstruction. Also she stated because she is BRCA positive, a hysterectomy will be in her future when she in mid-30's to 40 year range. Currently she receives chemo once a week which takes approximately 6 hours, and is due to complete chemo sometime in August. She also receives Lupron shots to preserve fertility function. She recently started receiving an injection to increase the white blood cell count. Because of side effects of the various meds and chemo she has had nausea, joint and bone pain, blurry vision, and much exhaustion and fatigue. Because of these side effects the oncologist has "tweaked" treatment and now she says it has been a little better, 

Stephanie has chosen to wear a cold cap to preserve as much hair as possible. At this point she does not think she will need any radiation therapy but when she has surgery this fall after the chemo has been completed they will remove lymph nodes to determine that, Stephanie is a warrior and up until the third chemo treatment was able to work as a nurse at a hospital. She has worked there for 5 years and is very dedicated to her profession, the patients and her co-workers. After the third treatment the fatigue became too much and she is on short term disability. 

Stephanie lives with her fiancé of 6 years. Currently she is the main "bread winner" as he fiancé is taking a break from optometry school to care for her. She is on short term disability and receives 60% of her pay from her nursing job at Kishwaukee Hospital in DeKalb. There are no other sources of income at this time. The expenses include rent, utilities, phone, groceries, and student loans. Stephanie has lived frugally and stated that her savings are running out and she is getting nervous to make ends meet. She said she has looked into the upcoming medical costs of breast cancer related surgeries and learned that because a non-network plastic surgeon needs to be involved she will have a $6,100 out of pocket cost to her. The funds from this award would highly benefit this patient to assist with living expenses and upcoming breast cancer related costs. 

Stephanie has been such a sweet person to work with. I only recently learned that she volunteered to work full time in the COVID-19 positive ward in the hospital so that a co-worker who lived with an elderly immunosuppressed parent did not have to. She stated that she did not have any children and her parents live over an hour away and did not see them that often so she felt like she was the better candidate. She has been able to maintain a positive attitude during treatment despite dealing with many side effects and wearing an ice cap during treatment. 

We are honored to be able to provide a financial grant to help take some of the financial burden off of Stephanie during this difficult time.

We thank all of you who have continued to support us, without your generosity we wouldn't be able to provide these grants.

On behalf of Kittie's Warriors Foundation and Stephanie, thank you!