Help Chelsea Fight Cancer & Have A Baby

This is my best friend Chelsea with her mother and her boyfriend Dave. Chelsea has been like a sister to me for well over a decade and she is one of the most compassionate and loving people I know.

Chelsea wanted to become a nurse for several years, but especially after her mother's treatment for breast cancer and seeing what a difference amazing nurses can make! Chelsea was studying for her board exam while working in a restaurant full-time, as she had during nursing school, (with loving and generous support from Dave), when she found a lump in her breast this past April of 2021. Chelsea is 33 years old. Knowing her family history and being a medically conscious woman on her way to being a nurse, she acted fast and made an appointment and was seen within a week. Every day that week she had appointments (exam, mammogram, ultrasound, and biopsy) and before the week's end, she had her diagnosis. It's cancer. Invasive ductal carcinoma, grade 3.

The lump and the effects afterwards came on incredibly quickly. Two weeks later Chelsea had her appointment with her oncologist, radiologist, and breast surgeon, and soon after a plastic surgeon, to discuss plan of care. Then came the difficult decision of what surgery to have, courses of treatment, and whether she would still be able to have children. As long as I've known Chelsea she's always wanted to be a mother. In the meantime, Chelsea had to stop working. She had already had a major loss of income being in the service industry (as did her boyfriend, and their roommate Erin) during COVID during the lockdown when restaurants were closed. Now she was immunocompromised and could not risk working with the public during the pandemic as she had not yet received her vaccination. Also during the month of May, Chelsea started having other symptoms that made her think something more was wrong. She advocated for herself when the doctors were not as concerned and was given another CT scan. This showed her lymph nodes were enlarged. Her plan of care all changed after a biopsy confirmed the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and mammary glands, making her a stage 3b. Only 3 months since she found her lump.

So now her whole plan of care has changed. Chelsea has had to start chemo, and will likely have radiation at some point, before they can even consider surgery. Not only that, but her type of cancer is known to be resistant to chemotherapy. This also put a time constraint on her ability to try to harvest her eggs and look into fertility options. She was able to harvest some eggs, though not as many as she had hoped. The costs of all these procedures, medications, surgeries, appointments, etc are astronomical. Luckily her insurance is covering some, but as they've already suffered financial hardships during the pandemic, this has definitely put a strain on them. Dave was able to put the procedure to harvest her eggs on his credit card (approximately $5k just for that procedure alone and does not count the costs to store them etc) and that is less than ideal as I'm sure everyone can understand. I'm starting this GoFundMe in hopes to ease their burden so that Chelsea can focus on beating this cancer and not have the added stress of financial burdens for she and Dave. The most urgent need would be for the $5k ASAP to avoid Dave paying interest fees. Any little bit can help! I don't know anyone more deserving of this help. Please donate if you are able and share!

Thank you!