Natalie's Stage 4 Breast Cancer Treatment Fund

Natalie is fierce and always laughing and dancing through life. Unfortunately, she is facing a shocking new phase with the return of her stage 4 breast cancer. She was originally diagnosed Jan 2020, just two weeks before the pandemic hit. December 30, 2019, Nat noticed a little dimple by the underwire on her bra and decided to go beg for an early mammogram! She was 39 and, as we all know, insurance doesn’t pay for one until you have 40-year-old boobs, but she pushed and it happened. Soon came a biopsy and the call came in on New Year’s Eve Day December 31, 2019. “I’m sorry Mrs. Lewis, it’s metastatic breast cancer”. She went through a year of grueling, targeted chemotherapy, a brutal double mastectomy including the removal of lymph nodes from her chest, and 6 weeks of excruciating radiation which still leaves scars. It was hell. She bounced back though, as she always does, and was in remission for 3.5 years. Recently, Natalie learned that the cancer she BEAT had returned, but now in multiple locations including her lungs, bones, sternum, and lymph nodes.

Natalie and her family are beyond devastated, scared and overwhelmed with this new frightening journey she is embarking on.

A little back story on Natalie's wonderful life: She had her beautiful daughter Cassie at 19 years old and she knew she was made to be a mama. Not many know, but she almost died several times fleeing Georgia and finally escaped with her two-year-old baby aboard a Greyhound bus from South Georgia to Seattle Washington. She spent 4 days with only $75 and a diapered baby but she made it! Her new life began. She dove into college not believing in herself yet determined by the baby blue eyes of Cassie May to make HER life INCREDIBLE. She didn’t have a car then, so she’d walk her to daycare and hop the bus and foot ferry to OC. With the help of her family, mom, dad, sister Jess, aunts and uncles, she graduated from the LPN program and a few years later became a registered nurse. Natalie has worked as a nurse for the Veterans Home, was a dialysis nurse, and took a small gig as a Kitsap County Jail nurse (now that’s a book of its own!!!). Currently, Natalie takes care of the sickest patients (ICU, OR, endoscopy procedures) in southwest Washington. It is where she loves to be! She has amazing coworkers in advanced GI at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center and if you were a visitor to her hospital room last week you could see all the love! Bursting with flowers and friends you had to wait for an open seat!

She waited a long time to find her mate~ and he arrived in 2012! Jason and Natalie married in 2015 at the Edgewater in Seattle surrounded by the closest loved ones and as the stormy day was wrapping up, just as she came down the aisle at 6:30 the clouds parted and the sun shone so bright. She knew it was her sister Jess! The life she’d dreamed of, the dad Cassie always asked for (when are you gonna find me a dad, mom?) the wish she always wanted came true with Jay. If you know him then you know what a rad mountain man he is! GO DAWGS!

Natalie has suffered more in her life than anyone we have ever known. Her biological dad died in 2007 of a massive stroke and her sister Jessica Zoe was smashed head-on by a drunk driver in Poulsbo WA by a man going 90+mph on the afternoon of Martin Luther King Jr. day. Her life came to a screeching halt and she threw herself into public speaking in front of the Navy, high schools, ride-a-longs and DUI emphasis nights supporting our amazing MADD group and Kitsap County sheriff's office. To this day she will tell you she’d trade to be on chemotherapy for life to get her sister Jessica back. Nothing could ever feel so horrible, not even cancer. Rachie, Tony and Joe all miss you, Jess!! Life then changed again with the suicide of Cassie’s biological father in Georgia which carried its own layers of sadness, loss, anger and despair. Sadness arrived again in 2022 with the unexpected death of her insanely loved, beyond-rad one-in-million brother Dax Michael McTaggart and the most recent heart-wrenching death of her dear Aunt Jo-Ann Mctaggart of Mississippi in June 2023.

Natalie was in remission for 3.5 incredible years, full of dancing, concerts, boogying to her bathroom 80's jams, laughing with her beloved coworkers, playing with her kitties, and loving her daughter and family ~ it’s been just beautiful! Nat already knew the meaning of life! She didn’t need another smack! She is the funniest one in the room and really should have her own TV show! If you know her you know what a brilliant light of giggles and just how hilarious she is!

It will be a long road for this little fearless firecracker but we are behind her 1000%! Please join us in supporting Natalie through another round of cancer treatment by assisting with medical bills and allowing her to take the time off she needs to focus on her health and her family.

Thank you!