Help Rachel Lieser fight cancer!

In October of 2019 Rachel had a routine pap smear while pregnant with her youngest of 3 children, Lucas Aren. The pap report came back with abnormal cells, but they were non-cancerous at that time. While still pregnant, her doctor's performed a colposcopy and took tissue samples that were non-cancerous again, but her doctor wanted to wait until Lucas was born and remove more of the tissue to be sure. On April 15th Lucas Aren joined the Lieser clan. After Rachel healed from childbirth, her physician scheduled a conization procedure to remove more tissue from her cervix. This pathology report came back positive for invasive squamous cell carcinoma (cervical cancer). At that time, the PET Scan showed only cervical involvement (no spread). She was referred to a specialist closer to the Twin Cities for cancer treatment. This specialist recommended a radical hysterectomy with removal of her fallopian tubes and lymph nodes to ensure no spread. Her surgery was a success on September 3rd. During surgery, they removed a total of 9 lymph nodes, the pathology report came back clean, but due to the large size of her tumor and the spread to the lymph tissue in the cervix, the doctors are recommending a 5 week daily (5x a week) radiation course in conjunction with 4-5 chemotherapy treatments (weekly) with the drug Cisplatin. This medication will not make her loose her hair, but it is known to dehydrate people due to nausea and will likely knock her on her ass. Without chemo and radiation, she was given a 15-20% chance of cancer recurrence in the next 5 years. With treatment, she is down to a 5% chance of recurrence and that number drops to less than 2% chance after 7 years! (yay!) She has a wonderful husband (Andy) and three active children (Caroline (5), Paul (2), and Lucas (5 months) a very supportive Minnesota family, and her Iowa family which are struggling with being so far away. Rachel runs an in-home day care which has been closed since March 20th due to Covid, then she was on maternity leave with Lucas, and has been unable to return to work due to her risk of illness while being treated for cancer. Her doctors called her cancer highly curable, so we have high hopes of everything going well. Rachel meets with the chemo and radiation doctors in the next two weeks, and will have more information. Currently, we are unsure when she will be able to return to work. We are asking for help since she is unable to work, and Andy is needing to take time off to help her with the kids (she is on a weight lifting restriction currently). We are unsure how much of her treatment is going to be covered by insurance, if any. The funds raised will help with medical bills, supplement income, and provide a cushion of support if care assistance is needed while Rachel is in treatment.  We will continue to update everyone as information comes.