Help her fight Thyroid Cancer

I'm an 18-year-old girl who has just graduated from high school. I have plans to join the Air Force to serve my country. I want to go into the medical field and study Nursing to help others.

I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma. I'm just now starting my life and it's been put on hold. To say the least, this is super crazy and terrifying to go through.

I was looking in the mirror one day and noticed a lump in my neck. I was keeping an eye on it and became concerned when I noticed it growing quickly. I decided to get it checked out and thankfully I did. After an ultrasound, biopsy, and CT scans, I was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors have told me that this is very aggressive and has already spread to my neck lymph nodes. This is a message from my doctor today: “To highlight how concerned I am about you - I'll share some honesty. I escalated your specific surgery up the leadership chain and went against a departmental policies just to get this scheduled.

Because I am so worried about you and the potential impact of delays in definitive treatment, l've worked to get you in as a high priority case in front of many others, even those with cancer, because this is behaving quite aggressively.”

I am scheduled for surgery on September 3rd, and praying all goes smoothly.

I’ve been keeping this diagnosis under wraps because well quite frankly I’m embarrassed. I don’t want to stress or worry anyone. I did not want to originally ask for financial help, but I don’t know how else my family and I are going to be able to pay for my surgery and any other treatment going into the future if I need it. My older brother Max has already been diagnosed with Stage 4 Germ Cell cancer last year, and my family is still taking care of him as much as we can. My mother is embarrassed and scared to ask for more money considering that we’ve just been through this with Max. But we do need help. I’m hoping to raise money just to offset the cost of our medical bills.