Jamie is first and foremost a lover and follower of God. She is a wonderful wife and amazing mother of our four beautiful kids. She is generous, kind, caring, thoughtful and devoted. She is an amazing cook and is great at organization and administration. She loves to read, but rarely has time; is very practical, loves to travel, has a heart for missions and enjoys making good food for people. She loves the outdoors and her children. She spends most of her time home schooling our four wonderful kids and coming up with new meal ideas. She manages our household and makes us all better people. Also a first born, she is somewhat of a perfectionist, but is never perfect!

Our family

She and our family are facing a journey we never hoped for nor expected. Here is her story:

Not What We Were Hoping… Or Expecting
It is very painful to be here again. We had high hopes that Jamie's cancer would not return for many years. Her last sets of scans in May and September of 2020 were all clear. Each set of scans includes a full body CT scan, a bone scan, and a brain MRI. Her latest scans were scheduled for December 29, 2020 for the CT and bone scans, and the brain MRI for January 5, 2021. On January 5, we were thankful to have the CT and bone scans behind us and that they were clear! We really expected good news from the brain MRI as well. Despite the statistics being against her, the doctors were hopeful and we really began to feel that she really might beat this. Ever since Jamie's metastatic breast cancer diagnosis, it has felt like there was an anvil just hanging over our life, just waiting to drop. Unfortunately, on January 5, 2021, the anvil dropped. 

Because of Covid, Jamie had to wait for the doctor by herself while Ryan waited in the car for her to call so we could hear what the results were. Unfortunately she had to hear the news all by herself as the resident came in and immediately started sharing the news with her and then started discussing whole brain radiation. He finally paused as he saw the look on her face and asked if there was anyone she wanted him to call. She said yes, and he called Ryan and filled him in on what they had already talked about. This was very hard.

Jamie's brain MRI scan showed she has at least 15 lesions all over her brain. They are mostly concentrated in the lower-rear part of her brain in the cerebellum, but there are some in the upper part, on both sides, on top, etc. Thankfully they are small, the largest being just over 1 cm, three are between 3-5 mm, and the rest are less than a millimeter. Unfortunately, this means targeted radiation is not an option. She will start whole brain radiation treatment on January 19. This will include 10 daily treatments. After that she will begin a new round of systemic treatment including chemotherapy and targeted gene therapy drugs. These will continue for the rest of her life or until they stop working. Thankfully they are oral medications she can take at home. There will of course be side effects.

Jamie being fitted for her radiation mask.

Our Current Circumstances
At this time we are very overwhelmed with life. Just after Jamie's diagnosis on January 5, the next day our family started a round of the stomach flu. Then, this week Monday, January 11, we found out our material supplier for our pillow business does not think he is going to be able to get us any more latex for our pillows. He has stated this is likely indefinitely. On Thursday January 14, we found out that there is a worldwide shortage on all foam pillow filling and we might not be able to get any for months. So just as our business started taking off, we are facing a real possibility of having to shut down. With zero income, Jamie's cancer returning, political turmoil in the nation, Covid continuing to ramp up, stomach flu, and everything else, January 2021 is not the restart we were hoping for. 

Jamie is scared. I am scared. The kids are scared. This is scary, and in reality the goal is to simply extend Jamie's life as much as possible. This is not curable, except by a miracle of God. The doctors have stated this, and we know it. We don't know how much time she has left. We were hoping and praying that we would have more time before it came back. Now we are hoping and praying the treatments work and buy us even more time. We are hoping for her to have years ahead, but there is no way to know. Most likely it will be less than two years.

We are thankful for every day we have together, knowing that they are all a gift. Our focus now is to not let the cancer be our focus, but rather to be thankful to God for every day and enjoy each other as much as possible. We hope that we have the opportunity to do things as a family to build lasting memories together. For now, we take one step forward every day and try not to worry about tomorrow. 

How You Can Support and Follow Us
We have been so blessed by the support, care and prayers of so many family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. We cannot thank everyone enough. Many people have expressed interest in helping us. This GoFundMe campaign is one way to summarize the need that we currently face and give people a simple way to help.

Jamie's insurance is covering her primary treatments, but she is also working with a naturopath from the Cancer Center of America that is not covered. Nor are the supplements she is recommending or the other treatments that help support her body. We also have no income right now as our business is shut down due to a worldwide shortage of material. We are looking for alternatives but are running into dead ends. Any help is appreciated.

You can also follow us on our blog at: LifeMoreImportant. We will be providing some updates on this GoFundMe page, but we will be using LifeMoreImportant.com as our primary means of keeping people updated. In addition to this GoFundMe page, there are other ways listed to help us, like gift cards, meals, etc. We also have more pictures there and a more detailed description of Jamie's whole cancer journey. Please join us there.

You can also support us through prayer and/or sharing your gifts and talents with us. We know that God will provide and is in control of our finances and Jamie's health. We trust in Him and thank him for all the help we have received.

Thank you,
Ryan (and Jamie)


P.S. For those of you not already aware, here is a somewhat brief history of Jamie's cancer journey leading up to this point:

Breast Cancer Round One
We took a step of faith in April of 2018 when Ryan quit his job. Our plan was to sell our house and road school our four kids (ages 12, 10, 7, and 3) for at least a year. At the time we thought the change of jobs was for Ryan’s health, little did we know it would be for both of ours. Jamie didn’t feel sick, yet she had a lump. In May 2018, Jamie was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. We followed God and changed plans. Jamie went through multiple rounds of treatment. The first round of treatment was chemotherapy with targeted gene therapies. These were intravenous injections every three weeks. They took several hours to administer and had the typical chemo affects. She was supposed to get 6 treatments, but after the fourth treatment her body was struggling, she passed out more than once and her blood tests showed they needed to adjust. For the 5th treatment they dropped one of the four drugs they were giving her, but her blood counts continued to tank and she passed out again. They decided to skip the last treatment as it was clear Jamie's body would not be able to handle it. 

Jamie getting chemo treatment

After chemo, Jamie had surgery to remove the lump in her breast and they removed 24 lymph nodes in her chest and armpit area. We were thankful that was all they removed. The pathology report showed no signs of cancer left.

After healing from the surgery, they placed her on an oral endocrine therapy drug that she takes daily. She also began radiation therapy in December 2018 which was supposed to be every day for 33 days, minus holidays and weekends. They targeted her breast area, her armpit and her neck area (there had been an indication of an early lump on the side of her neck near the clavicle. Due to the pain it was causing she was only able to make it 30 days.

In January or February of 2019, after radiation was complete, Jamie sneezed and heard a loud pop in her chest. She was in a lot of pain, but thought she just moved a rib out of place. She went to the chiropractor, but struggled with significant pain for several weeks. Eventually it went away. 

Her next scans were roughly three months after radiation was over and they were very encouraging. There was no sign of any cancer. However, they discovered signs of a healed broken rib where she received radiation. It turns out she actually broke a rib when she sneezed, not just moved it out of place. Radiation can greatly weaken the bones and that clearly happened here.

She got scanned every three months and her next two sets of scans were clear. We thought she had beat the cancer.

Breast Cancer Round Two
Jamie responded very well to treatment her initial treatments. In June 2019, Jamie's treatment was complete and a CT Scan came back negative – no cancer was found in her body. In January 2020, after a round of influenza B over Christmas, and then followed by a round of influenza A over the New Year, she started having headaches then migraines, which she had never had before. We thought it was probably caused from the two rounds of influenza and a new No Sugar January program she was trying to follow. But they were getting worse and  medication wasn’t helping, so Ryan brought her to the ER.

A CT Scan of her brain showed a large lesion in her cerebellum. They sent her by ambulance to the Neuro ICU at UW Hospitals and Clinics in Madison. An MRI showed a ping pong ball sized tumor in her brain and a lot of swelling with it. There were three other tumors as well. They were going to do surgery that night as she had significant signs of neurological problems, but they started her on steroids to try to reduce the swelling first. They started working so they planned for surgery a day later, but then other higher priority cases came up so they then postponed it again right as she was about to be taken in to surgery.

Jamie and the kids. Waiting in UW Health Neuro ICU for surgery.

A few days later on Sunday, February 2nd a neurosurgeon was able to remove the large tumor from her cerebellum and a smaller one next to it. They left the other tumors to be treated with radiation later as they were too far in the brain for surgery. The doctors and nurses told us that she would be dizzy and likely using a walker after surgery, and likely need inpatient physical therapy for up to two weeks. God was with her and the doctors during the surgery. She was not dizzy, did not need a walker and left the hospital two days later. No physical therapy nor occupational therapy required. Other than healing from surgery there were no neurological side effects. It was AMAZING! God is AMAZING! 

Jamie's scar after brain surgery

After healing from surgery, Jamie had stereotactic radiation of her tumor sites. This is a type of radiation where they use multiple beams of low dose radiation and focus them on the tumor site. The location where they come together gets a full dose of targeted radiation, thereby limiting the radiation to the rest of the brain. To do this, they bolt Jamie's head to the table using a custom fit plastic mask so that her head is in the exact same position every time. The radiation was highly concentrated on the tumor sites and was given for five consecutive days up in Madison. During radiation she had some headaches and skin pain on her scalp, but mostly some fatigue. About a week after radiation she lost her hair in a couple patches on the back of her head where the radiation went through. She recovered quickly and her hair started growing back.

Three months after radiation she had her follow up scans in June 2020. These now included a full body CT scan, a full body bone scan, and a brain MRI. Thankfully these showed the radiation had worked and the three of the four tumors were completely gone. The fourth site had not changed, but the doctors were not 100% sure this was a tumor. They thought it was possibly just some thicker vessels. This site did not change at all so we thought it likely was not a tumor.

Her scans in September 2020 were similarly positive and showed no signs of cancer. That one site that hadn't changed, still hadn't changed so we felt confident it wasn't cancer. Unfortunately, we now know it likely is cancer as her January 5, 2021 scan shows it has now started growing.

In late October, 2020, our family got Covid. Thankfully Jamie was able to recover quickly, along with the kids. Ryan took a bit longer, but is now mostly recovered.

Breast Cancer Round Three
And we are now in round three of Jamie's fight against metastatic breast cancer with brain mets. Honestly, this just keeps getting harder as we know every time this comes back it is harder to treat. Two days after we found out about the cancer being back, we all got a round of the stomach flu. Then, we found out about the challenges with the pillow business. Plus with all the political turmoil, and dealing with Covid, January 2021 is not the start to the new year we were hoping for.

Thank you for your support.