Pursuing Victory over Stage 4 Breast Cancer

My name is Christiana. I was originally diagnosed with Breast Cancer December 14, 2019. On December 31st 2019 I had a mastectomy and hysterectomy. I spent 2020 doing aggressive chemotherapy and by the end of treatment we were sure we got it all.

About 8 months after treatment ended, I began having severe muscle spasms. They were the worst in my legs, but affected several other areas of my body too. The painful spasms could last hours or even weeks at times. I had to move from teaching full-time to substitute teaching so I could work around the pain. By the grace of God, I have been able to support myself and my 3 children by this and the pay from odd jobs I picked up.

I was very excited to return to teaching full-time this year. I only made it to the 3rd week of school before I began experiencing severe pain in my left hip and leg. I pushed through it for several days until I could no longer walk on it. While waiting for an appointment to get that checked I had an episode of severe pain in my side and chest. I went to the emergency room, where they discovered a mass on my chest and "presumed metastatic breast cancer" that had broken one of my ribs.

Since then, I have been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer with extensive metastasis throughout my skeletal system. My bones are so damaged that I broke my back reaching down to pick up a piece of paper, so I can not work right now, which was our only source of income.

At this point I have exhausted all of the resources available in Alaska and I am awaiting insurance approval for out of state care.

Our financial needs are:

*Regular monthly bills $2000/month

*Insurance Co-Pays 20% deductible (currently around $6000 owed)

*Travel expenses to University of Washington to be determined

*Child care expenses while out of state to be determined

**fun experiences with the kids- This may not be considered a need to everyone, but this is very hard on them. We would appreciate any gift cards or tickets to have fun family experiences to break up the intensity of all of this.

Thank you for your prayers and support.