Support Marta's Battle Against Cancer

Marta’s daughter Maddy dances with my daughters, Hailey and Harper. As soon as my fellow dance moms and I learned of everything Marta and her family have been going through we wanted to help out in any way possible. While Marta is going through treatment for cancer she will be out of work for at least 3-4 months. All donation money raised will help immensely by lessening the financial burden as she fights and heals.

Below is just the start of her journey in her own words:

Hello friends and family - with so many questions coming at me and people asking how I am and what happened, I think I’m finally ready to share my journey I’ve been on over the last 2+ weeks.

Over the past 4-6 months I have been having severe left leg pain and left foot numbness. I have seen many Drs. Who have done lab work after lab work and imaging and referrals to other Drs. And have never found out the cause.

On Friday August 30th the pain in my leg got so bad I went yo the ER in Burnsville which is closest to me. They did an MRI which didn’t show much and I asked for them to check results of an EMG I had done recently that the Dr. suggested I have a stomach CT scan. The ER Dr. ordered the CT scan and that’s when my hell began.

The results came back that I had a 12.1cm complex mass on my pelvis located between my anus and my pelvis. I needed to be transferred via ambulance to the U of M Fairview hospital to be seen by the gyn/oncologist surgery team.

At about 3:40am on Saturday August 31st. I was transferred and directly admitted. I met my whole surgery team who explained that this mass was very complex, had to be removed immediately, was most likely cancer, could not be removed laparoscopic because it was sooo large and gunky that it was stuck to many other organs.

On Sunday the 1st, I had my surgery. My 2.5 hour surgery turned into 7.5 hours and it had its complications. I ended up with an ileostomy (poop) bag, some nerve damage in my vagina, I was given a full hysterectomy, and a few other minor things all which were unexpected. The mass WAS cancer.

I went through 7 days of absolute hell in the hospital which included being overdosed by the staff and needing to be narcanned, being left completely naked in bed for 45 minutes while an inexperienced nurse couldn’t figure out how to put on a new ileostomy bag, listened to 3 nurses scream and fight with eachother for 45 minutes straight, was sent home with all incorrect sized supplies, was promised a home health aide would be at my house on Monday when they didn’t have anyone until the following Monday. I was discharged with a catheter as well. I went home on Friday September 6th.

I had several appointments inbetween then. On Thursday September 12th at 1:30am I went back to the Burnsville ER due to my upper stitches turning red, warm, and weeping brownish discharge and blood. They did labs and more imaging and found that not only did I have a very bad UTI, I have a fistula, and an abscess. They had to place a drain in my butt cheek to drain the abscess and now we are working on how to treat the abscess which may require surgery. My mom came down right away to be with me.

We had to spend 67 hours in the ER before they were able to transfer me via ambulance to the U of M Fairview hospital due to them having no beds available. We are currently working on pain management , a plan for the fistula, and of course next course of action. I did find out my cancer diagnosis which is the following:

Low Grade Stage 3b Serous ovarian carcinoma. Metastasis to the outside of the colon, vagina, rectum, both ovaries and her uterus. I will go on a blind trial. One arm is Chemo and Hormones and the other is Hormones. Blind as we won't know which one I am on. I will start this chemo as soon as my fistula is taken care of!

Please send lots of love and prayers not only to me but to my kiddos as they are taking this so hard and their little hearts miss their mommy so much!!!!