Help Mom of 3 With Upcoming Breast Removal Surgery

Hi, My name is Kelly and I'm fundraising for my sister-in-law, Amber. Amber is an amazing wife to my brother Matt and a super mom to their 3 boys, 2 with special needs. Having children who require extra care prompted Amber to stay at home with them. It’s been a hard journey for their family surviving on only one income, but the love and dedication to their children’s needs have always been a priority for them.

In May of 2023, Amber started having pain in her right breast and noticed a lump. She was in and out of the hospital multiple times because even though the doctors knew it was some type of infected abscess, they couldn’t figure out what it was exactly because it was too fast growing. They tried to prescribe Amber with pain medication and antibiotics to see if they could reduce whatever this mysterious abscess was but unfortunately nothing they prescribed worked. Because her skin was getting to the point of almost being ruptured, they had to do immediate surgery at the Mayo Clinic to try and remove the abscess. While Amber was in surgery, the surgeons (with Matt’s consent), decided that for her to have the best chance of not having further infections in that breast (and more surgeries) that they should remove the entire front part of her breast including her nipple.

Surgery was successful but recovery was hard on Amber. She struggled mentally and couldn’t get herself to look at her new open wound and was also mourning the loss of part of her breast. She wasn’t allowed to do any physical lifting for 8 weeks and had to focus on resting, which as a full-time mom was extremely difficult. With their recent move to Rochester for an amazing job opportunity for Matt, this left them with no close friends or family nearby available to help. Matt thankfully was able to be home the first week of her recovery using the last of his paid time off. With them being dependent on his sole income, he had to go back to work. He still needed to be able to change Amber’s dressings and pack her open wound 3 times a day and also continue walking their youngest to and from school every day. This left him with commuting back and forth from home to work multiple times a day while working 55+ hours each week. During this duration of Amber’s recovery, he was also in charge of cleaning, cooking, laundry, grocery shopping, bathing the kids, and also bathing Amber.

By September, Amber made a full recovery and was finally feeling like her normal self again. Sadly in November, the day before Amber’s birthday, she got the news from the Mayo Breast Clinic that there was a new lump in her left breast that seemed similar to the one she had in her right breast. While discouraging, they knew to jump into action and they started doing numerous aspirations to figure out what was causing the abscess and to help prescribe what antibiotics would be best to hopefully help avoid another surgery. They discovered there was a total of 5 different bacterias in the abscess and 1 of them is extremely difficult to get rid of. From those results they decided to have Amber go see an infectious disease specialist at Mayo. The infectious disease specialist thought the best course of action would be for Amber to take an antibiotic 3x a day for a year and also do multiple aspirations monthly to try and reduce/keep the infection at bay. A week before Christmas, she was in more pain and the doctors prescribed a stronger antibiotic. She still wasn’t feeling well. Two weeks later while going in for her monthly routine bloodwork, after describing her symptoms to the doctors, they wanted her to go back to the Breast Center to talk with a surgeon about possibly having another surgery.

On January 16th 2024, they met with the surgeon and Amber currently has surgery scheduled for January 25th, 2024 to remove part of her left breast. They informed her it would be similar to her other surgery that she had in May and that she would have the same aftercare of not being able to lift anything over 10lbs and to rest for 8 weeks after surgery.

Knowing how difficult the first surgery was on Amber and their family, we would love to be able to help them financially through this second surgery. The funds would help give Matt the ability to be able to take time off work so he can focus on taking care of Amber and their 3 children, allowing Amber to be able to just focus on recovering. Any extra funds will help medical costs, bills, food, and house supplies to help alleviate any added stress as well during this time.

Thank you for listening to Amber’s story. Any amount you feel led to donate (no matter how small) does make a huge difference! If you aren’t able to contribute financially at this time, we just ask that you please share this fundraiser with others. Continue to keep Amber and the Ernest family in your thoughts and prayers!

I will continue to post updates here on Amber’s surgery and recovery.