Fertility Preservation Assistance for Stephanie

Hi, for those of you that don’t know me, my name is Stephanie. I’m 34 years old (birthday last week!) and have been married to a great guy for the past year. While struggling with COVID was hard, dealing with devastating news during COVID is worse.

 

A little back story.

 

I’m a transplant to Long Island…moving here in 2008 right out of college. I have a pretty good job and met some great people along the way. My family doesn’t live close, in fact, prior to our bad news, I would only see them maybe once a year. Matt and I married in October 2020, right in the middle of COVID. It was a great day. The only thing that could have made it better was if we had our entire guest list, not just 10 people (including ourselves and the photographer). In February we bought a co-op after years of paying rent. How exciting, right? New marriage, new home? Everything seemed to finally be fitting into place.

 

June 1st. “You have breast cancer”.

 

From that day forward my entire life was turned upside down. On top of having a bilateral mastectomy, reconstruction, dozens of visits to the plastic surgeon, the breast surgeon and hoping for the best, we find out that my cancer has a 52% reoccurrence rate. When I heard this from my doctor my jaw hit the floor. How is it possible that a cancer that I didn’t know existed a month prior had more than a 50% chance of coming back and killing me?? I’m only 34. I had hoped for a long life ahead of me, filled with love, laughter…babies… but now I feel like the one thing I need to hope for… is LIFE.

 

Before I can begin a rigorous chemotherapy regimen, I need to complete fertility preservation, since having a child after this regimen will potentially be impossible. I was referred to an amazing doctor, and everyone in the office is so nice. Fertility preservation, unlike the normal IVF, is not to have a baby now, but to save eggs so that you can have a baby in the future. The first round was going great, in fact, we were grateful that it was going to be over. After all, the one thing I want more than anything at this point is to just get back to a normal life. I go into the oncologist office and, after repeatedly asking if the shot they are giving me will affect my fertility preservation treatments, they gave me a shot. The shot ruined everything and cost me more than I could even list. The Zoladex shot wasn’t supposed to be given until I started chemotherapy. It bottomed out my hormone levels and wasted all of the medicine I had taken. We started a second round, this time hopeful that everything was going to work out. We go through with the surgery. Nothing is viable. Turns out that the Zoladex shot was still in my system and destroyed everything. All the eggs wasted. All the time wasted. I was devastated. I went the way of looking for a Medical Malpractice attorney, but no one will take the case since it’s ‘not enough of a loss’. As it turns out, I should apparently be happy I only lost $10,000. (This was said to me verbatim by an attorney).

 

The financial hit from the first two rounds of medications ($2,000), the surgery ($5,800) plus the three to four appointments each week ($50 each) has taken its toll. This doesn’t even take into account all of the other doctors appointments that I have. We now need to do it for a third time and we just don’t have anything left. I never thought I would ever be in this position… going broke just to stay alive.

 

I created this GoFundMe based on the suggestion of one of the nurses in the office. She explained that while everything that could go wrong in my cancer journey has, sometimes you need to ask for help. That’s what I am doing now. Please help. Any assistance would be appreciated. If you could find it in your heart to help, you will not be sorry. Everyone deserves to have a child and I truly believe that Matt and I would be amazing parents. Ask anyone, they will probably say I ‘mothered’ them.

The $5,800 is split between the cost of an additional surgery ($5,000) and the fee for the anesthesia for the procedure ($800). 

Thank you for reading. We love you ❤️