Rachel's Fight Against Metastatic Breast Cancer

Dear family & friends,

Well, here we are again, although it is the last place we wanted to be. In 2018, I discovered that I had stage 3 breast cancer--which for me was a primary tumor in my right breast and more in my axillary lymph nodes. This was devastating news to hear at age 26, three months away from the date Yassen and I were set to be married! For our wedding, everything was planned and ready, but it all had to be canceled since there was one thing slightly more important that came up… my life. So we scrapped the wedding plans and were thrown into the hospital. Yassen and my family were there for me every step of the way….After 8 rounds of chemotherapy, a mastectomy and lymph node dissection, and 28 treatments of targeted radiation to top it off, I was deemed cancer free, and life was going to be back on track (besides the whole healing process and continued hormonal therapy—no small feat!).

We replanned our wedding in Lawrence, Kansas, and had a fabulous celebration in December of 2019.

Yassen and I have done our very best to get back to normal life while monitoring health. I even went back to school and got an Associates in Animal Science, becoming an Registered Veterinary Technician at age 31!

However, life threw a wrench at us yet again. After working for some time at the local animal shelter, I randomly woke up one morning with a pain in my hip. It was bizarre, uncomfortable and caused me to have a limp. The pain did not improve and after 6 weeks and two doctors appointments, we got an X-ray that showed a 7 centimeter lesion within the top part of my femur. The doctor suspected it was linked to my history of breast cancer and after about a week+ of MRI’s, a PET/CT scan, and other testing, it was sadly confirmed as a breast cancer recurrence. The bad news kept rolling in, with metastases showing up in my lungs, liver and brain :(.

I cannot begin to describe how devastating this shit-storm of news has been. Any normal life plans we had crumbled in front of our eyes, and I had to have surgery on my femur ASAP. Dr. Avedian at Stanford placed a 14” rod and three screws into my femur for stabilization. While recovering from this major surgery I also completed 10 treatments of radiation to both my brain and femur. I've also started on a new targeted therapy called IBrance to combat the cancer.

Since Yassen and I live in San Jose, California, and our families are in Oklahoma and Kansas, it can be challenging to go at this ourselves. We do have support from friends out here who have been so kind in making a meal train, etc., but I would love to be able to spend more valuable time with family that live out of state.

Plane ticket costs add up fast, and I wish to help family and friends with these costs.

I also happen to have storage FULL of original artwork. Please consider helping out with any sum of money. Even with $20, I will send you an art print or drawing.

Thank you for reading my story and for helping during this difficult time. Purchasing artwork from me not only helps us with all of these travel and other expenses related to my cancer treatment, it gives me a small project to keep my mind off of things while I am unable to work. We are very grateful for your help!

Link: Art Website

All the best,

Rachel