Her Voice Was Taken by Cancer, Now We Help Her Find It Again

My name is Nate, and I’m raising funds to help the woman I love, we all love, Shantelle, get back her voice and heal after surviving a rare and aggressive Stage 4 throat cancer.

Shantelle is a mother of five, a graduate student in her master’s program for clinical mental health counseling, and the kind of person who lifts others even when she’s drowning. She’s been our family’s heartbeat. Now she needs support to keep going.

This journey began months ago, though we didn’t know it at the time.

On November 18, 2024, Shantelle lost her voice. We thought it was a cold. Or exhaustion. Between the holidays, working with her counseling clients, and traveling every weekend for our daughter’s gymnastics, it made sense. She whispered through Thanksgiving. Then Christmas. Then New Year’s.

Winter passed, but her voice never came back.

In February, we saw an ENT. He scoped her and missed the tumor. He diagnosed her with acid reflux (GERD), told her to change her diet, and come back in six months.

That delay could have been fatal.

By March, I couldn’t take it anymore. Something in me said this is not okay. On March 28, I begged her to get a second opinion. We were scheduled for early May… but fate stepped in.

On April 2, we got a call: there was a cancellation. A doctor named Dr. Charron could see her that afternoon.

She scoped Shantelle and immediately saw a mass. Without hesitation, she sent her straight to CT imaging. By 5:30 p.m., Dr. Charron asked us to return to her office. That’s when we heard the words that changed everything.

“It’s cancer. Stage 1-2.”

She said we got in at the perfect moment. A cancellation in her biopsy schedule opened up a spot for the next morning, April 3. That same day, she confirmed it was supraglottic squamous cell carcinoma stage 1-2.

We were referred to Mayo Clinic on April 5. Surgery was scheduled for May 2.

What Surgery Looked Like:

Shantelle’s tumor was aggressive. It was taking over her vocal cord and epiglottis, and had started to spread in isolated “island” patterns- a rare and unpredictable form of spread that made the cancer more dangerous to remove.

On May 2, three surgical teams at Mayo Clinic worked together for over 12 hours to:

Her lead surgeon told us that if the cancer had progressed even a little further, they would’ve had to remove her entire voice box, lymph nodes would have been over taken, and we would be having a much different conversation, we’d have lost her.

By some miracle, she didn’t need a feeding tube. She passed her swallow study within two days and was discharged nine days early.

One of her surgeons watched her post-op scope and said the healing looked like “nothing short of a miracle.” She even whispered her first words: “Okay, love.”

What’s Still Ahead:

Shantelle unfortunately isn’t done. Her team expects two more surgeries over the coming months. The surgery revealed the cancer upgraded to Stage 4a and:

1. Vocal Cord Medialization Surgery – to reposition the reconstructed cord for stronger voice projection and better closure.

2. Graft Revision Surgery – to reshape and fine-tune the vocal cord muscle for improved range, tone, and function.

She’ll also need:

She is currently out of work and is starting her clinical internship as part of her counseling program this summer. She hopes to return to paid employment in 4–6 months, depending on healing and treatment.

Why We Need Help:

We’ve been carrying this on our own as long as we could. But we’ve reached a point where we can’t do it without support.

Your donation will help with:

• Long-term housing near Mayo Clinic (8+ hours from home)

• Out-of-pocket medical costs

• Travel for surgeries and treatments

• Radiation, medications, and devices not fully covered by insurance

• Lost wages and basic living support during recovery

If you know Shantelle, you know her fight. You know her heart. She’s spent her life taking care of others, in her family, her community, her counseling work.

Now, she needs a little help to keep going.

To speak again.

To finish her degree.

To be a mom and partner.

To live.

If you can give, thank you.

If you can’t, please share this. Every prayer, every post, every dollar makes a difference.

We’re not out of the woods. But we’re still standing.

And we believe, deeply, that this isn’t the end of her voice.

It’s the beginning of a new one.

With love from our family to yours,

Family of 7

How Your Support Helps

Every dollar donated goes directly toward keeping Shantelle safe, supported, and stable during this critical recovery period. Your help makes the impossible feel possible.

Here’s what your donation can do:

• $97 covers one night of housing near Mayo Clinic so she can stay close to her care team

• $125 gets us to Rochester for surgery or follow-up treatment

• $250 helps us pay for post-op supplies, medications, or voice equipment

• $500 covers a full week of temporary housing, food, and gas while she heals away from home

• $1,000+ supports months of lost income, radiation costs, or her upcoming surgeries

Our goal is $20,000 every bit helps, and no gift is too small.

If you can’t give financially, sharing this link and praying for Shantelle means the world to us.

Thank you for standing beside her, for believing in her healing, her fight, and her voice.