Lynn Stucker and Cancer Sucks!!!!
Donation protected
Lynn Stucker is a single parent who has done a fabulous job of raising her son Griffin on her own . She currently works as a Nurse Practioner and her son is a student at Purdue University.
This is Lynn Stucker's story of her battle with Multiple Myeloma, which is an incurable cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow.
On July 14th, 2014 Lynn was diagnosed with an aggressive form of the disease with a poor prognosis of 5 years. She began chemotherapy on July 15th and tried to reach remission but it was decided she needed a bone marrow transplant. Lynn completed 5 months of chemo before she did the transplant in January 2015. She continued to work full time and has developed permanent severe peripheral neuropathy but she HAD to work because she is her only source of income. Lynn had to continue to support herself and her son through college.
Co-workers donated enough PTO to get her through the transplant process. After 2 1/2 weeks she was sent home to recover. At times, she thought she would never get better. In the beginning, she was only able to stand for 5 minutes at a time. By the middle of March, she regained enough strength to go back to work because she needed to have health benefits. Over the next 2 months she was able to work full time again. Remission can be very brief and Lynn gets her levels checked every 2 months. Once a month she recieved an IV infusion of Zometa to harden her bones.
A year later in July 2015, she finally felt well enough to walk on the treadmill. She had lost most of her muscle mass after the transplant and her endurance was extremely low from being unable to exercise until she recieved Zometa for 1 year. She recently was able to get back to her pre-chemo and high dose steroid weight.
At the end of September 2015, her labs showed she was no longer in remission. If her number got to a certain level, she would have to restart chemo. Suddenly she began to feel extremely weak and tired again. She had her labs rechecked and on November 4th, 2015, she learned the cancer was no longer in remission and it had become extremely aggressive and was growing rapidly. Lynn is now anemic with borderline renal insufficiency. These are 2 of the main causes of death for people with Multiple Myeloma.
She restarted chemo on November 11th, but her labs were rechecked before she started. Her hemoglobin had dropped from 11.0 to 8.5 and her platelets have dropped from 112,000 to 73,000 in one weeks time. This new chemo tends to drop your hemoglobin and platelets even more. She goes back in one week and if her hemoglobin is near 7 and she's symptomatic (which she already is), she will need a blood transfusion and possible hospital admission in the future.
Lynn is so incredibly fatigued, she cannot work full time again. She would still need to work part time to have benefits, but that is all she is capable of. She will recieve treatment for 3 weeks on with 1 week off until the cancer numbers respond. If they do not she will have to change agents. Going into this chemo already anemic with low platelets, she is afraid she won't rebound like she did last year...
All donations will go straight to Lynn to help her stay afloat financially through this hard time. She has appreciated all the prayers thus far so please continue lifting her up.
Cancer sucks!!!
This is Lynn Stucker's story of her battle with Multiple Myeloma, which is an incurable cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow.
On July 14th, 2014 Lynn was diagnosed with an aggressive form of the disease with a poor prognosis of 5 years. She began chemotherapy on July 15th and tried to reach remission but it was decided she needed a bone marrow transplant. Lynn completed 5 months of chemo before she did the transplant in January 2015. She continued to work full time and has developed permanent severe peripheral neuropathy but she HAD to work because she is her only source of income. Lynn had to continue to support herself and her son through college.
Co-workers donated enough PTO to get her through the transplant process. After 2 1/2 weeks she was sent home to recover. At times, she thought she would never get better. In the beginning, she was only able to stand for 5 minutes at a time. By the middle of March, she regained enough strength to go back to work because she needed to have health benefits. Over the next 2 months she was able to work full time again. Remission can be very brief and Lynn gets her levels checked every 2 months. Once a month she recieved an IV infusion of Zometa to harden her bones.
A year later in July 2015, she finally felt well enough to walk on the treadmill. She had lost most of her muscle mass after the transplant and her endurance was extremely low from being unable to exercise until she recieved Zometa for 1 year. She recently was able to get back to her pre-chemo and high dose steroid weight.
At the end of September 2015, her labs showed she was no longer in remission. If her number got to a certain level, she would have to restart chemo. Suddenly she began to feel extremely weak and tired again. She had her labs rechecked and on November 4th, 2015, she learned the cancer was no longer in remission and it had become extremely aggressive and was growing rapidly. Lynn is now anemic with borderline renal insufficiency. These are 2 of the main causes of death for people with Multiple Myeloma.
She restarted chemo on November 11th, but her labs were rechecked before she started. Her hemoglobin had dropped from 11.0 to 8.5 and her platelets have dropped from 112,000 to 73,000 in one weeks time. This new chemo tends to drop your hemoglobin and platelets even more. She goes back in one week and if her hemoglobin is near 7 and she's symptomatic (which she already is), she will need a blood transfusion and possible hospital admission in the future.
Lynn is so incredibly fatigued, she cannot work full time again. She would still need to work part time to have benefits, but that is all she is capable of. She will recieve treatment for 3 weeks on with 1 week off until the cancer numbers respond. If they do not she will have to change agents. Going into this chemo already anemic with low platelets, she is afraid she won't rebound like she did last year...
All donations will go straight to Lynn to help her stay afloat financially through this hard time. She has appreciated all the prayers thus far so please continue lifting her up.
Cancer sucks!!!
Organizer and beneficiary
Amy Stillabower Steffy
Organizer
Brownsburg, IN
lynn stucker
Beneficiary