Cancer Treatment Help for Brooke

My story begins here:

I had to see an oncologist a few weeks ago due to a suspicious-looking cyst on my ovary... I had major surgery Tuesday, January 24th and the oncologist removed the cyst from my left ovary, a normal cyst from my right ovary, the left ovary and my appendix (which appeared bigger than normal). Initial pathology did not show cancer or pre-cancer. However, I did have a lot of mucinous material around in my abdomen and he is not sure where that was coming from. All of those items were sent to pathology for further testing... I am, for the record, recovering well from that surgery.

I went to the doctor Wednesday, February 1st and the pathology report for everything came in. I have stage 4 cancer in my abdominal cavity. Basically, the cancer started in my appendix then spread... so all that mucinous material in there was/is cancer, the appendix was housing a tumor, and my ovarian cyst contained a huge amount of that mucinous material. The good thing is, appendix-related cancers generally grow slow... the bad thing is, it's had time to spread. I was referred to a new oncologist who specializes in this particular type of cancer and I'll be seeing him Monday, February 6th. Basically, they do a surgical procedure known as a warm chemo wash... it's a one-time procedure that targets all the microscopic cancer cells and can be pretty harsh to the system but extremely effective.... providing that this hasn't spread any further, this should be the only treatment I'll need.

With that said, I need financial help and many of you know already how hard it is for me to ask for this. The first surgery I had drained my savings account but paid the high deductible on my insurance plan. Because cancer is such a weird, complicated thing, I don't know how much my insurance will cover with this treatment. It also depends heavily on if this cancer has spread further and if I will need more treatment. But any amount truly will help.

I promise to fight this as hard as I can.

Thank you.

Learn more about my story and updates on my cancer journey here: https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/brookescancerjourney2