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Overcoming Ovarian Cancer

Hello Friends and Family

My name is Julia Ward and I am here trying to collect support for my best friend Shelbie Ferrin and her family.
I would like to start with saying a HUGE THANK YOU for visiting this page to learn more about Shelbie. Any form of support goes a long way! All donations are greatly appreciated. If you are not able to donate, please share this page to your facebook account or social media. Thank you so much for helping her through this time.
For anyone who does not know Shelbie.. she is the sweetest girl around. She is full of love and laughter that can help make anyone’s day better. She loves spending time with her two younger siblings and has been very lucky to have her loving parents at her side. Shelbie has always worked hard in high school to focus in her studies and stayed active while on her High School swim team. She dedicated her time to completing many college courses while in High School and graduated with her diploma in 2016. The next fall Shelbie headed off to Dixie State University to continue her education and to try out the college life! Her first year away from home was full of meeting new people, making lifelong friends, and many new experiences! 

She was right on track to get her degree and then fulfill her dream of attending medical school to become a Doctor.  
 
This past year has been hard on her, giving her a lot of unknowns and scary health concerns. Shelbie has had three abdominal surgeries, numerous CT and MRI scans, and 4 rounds of intensive Chemotherapy.
This has been a very scary time for her, but she has had so many supporters cheering her along just letting her know they are here for her. I know she is so grateful for everyone that has reached out to her and her family.

Up to this point, because Shelbie just started her adult life, she has been covered by her family’s Health Care Plan. This has been a huge blessing, and her parents have spent tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket to pay for things like travel expenses, surgeries, doctors appointments, numerous CT/MRI scans, blood work, ect.. Today they are expecting to be billed $50,000 for her recent four rounds of Chemotherapy.

How it all started..

June 2017--After a day of unimaginable pain in her lower abdomen, Shelbie went to her local hospital.  An emergency ultrasound was performed to discover something was very wrong with her left ovary.
 
Shelbie was taken into emergency surgery.
Once she woke up, Doctors explained there was a mass on her left ovary, causing it to twist and untwist - also known as torsing
The doctors were surprised by this because it is so rare in females, it normally only happens to males in their testicles.
This was actually a blessing in disguise. -If Shelbie did not have stomach pains they would not have looked close enough to see what was inside-
Doctors continued to explain, unfortunately, her ovary had been twisted for too long and had restricted blood flow resulting the tissue dying and needing to be removed.

Shelbie was devastated to learn half of her reproductive organs had been removed, but was reassured she still had the possibility of having her own children one day with her one remaining ovary.
The removed ovary was sent it to Pathology for testing.

A week after surgery, Shelbie received a phone call from her ER surgeon that performed her oophorectomy (ovary removal). He explained the mass they had found on her ovary had come back with results.

They found germ cells in the mass - more specifically Dysgerminoma - or cancer cells.
Shelbie was so lucky with how early they caught this cancer because was only in Stage 1A.
(If her ovary did not twist we would not have found the cancer)
Shelbie was then referred to her oncologist Dr. Gilbert and surgeon Dr. Jessica Hunn who specializes in OB/GYN oncology at the IMC Hospital.

July 2017--
The next step was to have another surgery, - a lymphadenectomy - to confirm that the cancer hadn’t spread to any of her other tissues.
Shelbie’s lymph nodes and tissues were biopsied and the results came back very confusing.

All of the tissue came back clean, however, a “wash test” was performed in her abdominal cavity and came back with “suspicious cells”. This neither confirmed or denied if there was more cancer, but it did change her cancer diagnosis to a Stage 1C.

Stage 1C means that she would need to do multiple rounds of chemotherapy to insure no cancer cells are still present.
However, Dr. Hunn did not feel comfortable with that diagnosis. She didn’t want to put poison into Shelbie’s body for “suspicious cells” at her young age of 19.
 
For the next couple weeks Dr. Hunn reviewed Shelbie’s case with her colleges across the country. They concluded they did not want to give her chemotherapy and would rather watch her carefully performing monthly blood work and CT scans every three months.
Grateful for this decision Shelbie carried on with her life, working full time at Dixie Regional Hospital as a Phlebotomist and going to school full time.

May 2018--
 
She joined an awesome motorcycle group named Redline that has treated her like family.
***Shelbie completed her Associates Degree at Dixie State University*** Yay!!

Shelbie went in for her routine CT scan. The radiologist saw an abnormality on Shelbie’s right ovary.
An MRI was taken to get a better image.
 
A dense mass was discovered on Shelbie’s remaining ovary. It was decided that Shelbie needed another surgery as soon as possible to see if the last ovary had been damaged by cancer cells.

June 5, 2018--
Shelbie went through her third surgery. Dr. Hunn performed the surgery and discovered that the cancer had in fact relapsed on her other ovary and had also spread to her appendix.
Dr. Hunn was able to remove her appendix and carefully remove the cancerous cells to save the remaining part of her ovary.
 
With this being found they changed her diagnosis to Ovarian Cancer- Stage 4. With the cancer developing so fast on her remaining ovary, Dr. Hunn instructed that Shelbie receive 3-4 rounds of Chemotherapy.

September 2018--

Shelbie has completed her three and a half months of hell to finish four rounds of treatment. She has stayed so strong and gave it her all to save herself.  During this time she has been focusing on getting better and thinking about getting her life back to reality. She is so excited to move back to her college town and go backto work as a Phlebotomist at her local IHC Hospital.
 

WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP--

With the continuous medical bills coming in, the cost for the 4 rounds of Chemotherapy will be $50,000. Our goal is to reach $10,000 to go towards helping her family.

WHO IS IN CHARGE OF FINANCES?

Shelbie’s Mother and Father (Melanie & Troy Ferrin) will continue to overseeing her finances during this time. They will have the direct account information with full access to all of the donations.

Thank you all so much for reading about Shelbie. If you have any questions please feel free to ask! I will be overseeing this GoFundMe campaign and updating everyone of Shelbie’s progress.
 
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Donations 

  • Melissa Kelley
    • $50 
    • 6 yrs
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Organizer and beneficiary

Julia Ward
Organizer
Saint George, UT
Shelbie Ferrin
Beneficiary

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