Help Tammy Fight Like A Girl

This is to help raise funds for Tamyra VanZandbergen while she is fighting breast cancer for the second time within 5 years. The funds will go towards medical expenses, medications, bills and food. Tammy is unable to work due to lowered immunity caused by her chemotherapy treatments that she has to go through for a total of 6 months. Tammy and her husband, Kirk VanZandbergen, have exhausted their savings to get through the first 3 months. I am now reaching out on her behalf to family and friends for financial help, prayers and well wishes to get through the rest of this year. As long as Tammy remains healthy and blood work stays as it should, her last treatment day will be December 13th, 2018. Please pray that everything goes as intended otherwise they will face new challenges the beginning of 2019 as health insurance is projected to increase and deductibles will restart. She is a wife, mother to 3 children (2 teenage boys still at home), grandmother, daughter, sister and a friend to anyone and everyone she meets. If you know Tammy, you know that she is always there and does so much for everyone in her life. It's time for us to be there for her. If you're able to donate monetarily, that would be wonderful! Some other ideas would be a nice card with well wishes, meals, gas cards, gift cards, books, games or movies to help pass time while she has to stay at home.. whatever you feel drawn to give, will be appreciated. "Few of us can do great things, but all of us can do small things with great love." -Mother Teresa

Here are details on Tammy's cancer types and treatments, I'm including dates to show you how fast life can change:

Late 2013:
On September 14th, Tammy was rocking her granddaughter and felt a sore spot on her left breast. September 16th, she went to AMI for a mammogram which resulted in the order of 3 biopsies to be done on September 20th. September 24th at 10:15am, Dr. Milius called Tammy to inform her that it was in fact breast cancer. October 21st, she underwent a double, radical mastectomy in addition to the removal of 6 lymph nodes to extract 2 types of cancer: metastatic carcinoma and invasive ductal carcinoma. Reconstructive surgery was performed the same day. Oral chemotherapy was prescribed following her surgery to be taken for the next 10 years to reduce the risk of the cancer returning. Tammy could not work for 4 months while she recovered.

2014- mid 2018:
Tammy went to all of the recommended and scheduled oncology appointments, labs and medicinal changes as her doctors prescribed and participated in all of the breast cancer walks. She was coming up on her 5th year of remission!

Current:
July 12th, Tammy underwent a surgery by Dr. Norris to correct a double hernia and to also remove a lump from above her left implant to be sent off to pathology for further testing. July 16th, Dr. Norris called and told Tammy the devastating news that her cancer was indeed back. July 23rd, she went to St. E's for an ECG, CAT, PET and brain scans. July 24th, Tammy had to undergo yet another surgery to be sure that all of the cancer cells were removed from the area of her recent lumpectomy. July 26th, she had a meeting with Dr. Midathada, her oncologist, who then informed her that the recommended treatment this time around would need to be an intensive chemotherapy regimen. August 23rd she had her port placed. August 30th, Tammy experienced her first chemotherapy treatment. Every other Thursday over the next 8 weeks  she went in for chemo infusions dubbed "the red devil". An echocardiogram will be done on October 18th to insure that her body is able to handle more chemotherapy. Tammy will then begin weekly Taxol chemo infusions for 8 straight weeks starting on October 25th as long as results show that her body is able. Projected completion of chemotherapy for good, God willing, will be December 13th, 2018. 

Tammy is trying her best to keep a positive attitude and is looking forward to putting all of this behind her and beating cancer for good.

Thank you all for taking the time to read about Tamyra's difficult journey in fighting this nasty disease and for helping a good friend through a hard time. Love and light to all of you.