Stephanie & Family while battling breast cancer

UPDATE @ END 10/5

Hello- I am Hope and I have been friends with Stephanie for 29 years. She is married to Ralph who has bee a Monmouth Firefighter for 20 years . They have 3 children. Stephanie was diagnosed with grade 2 invasive ductal carcinoma and is a triple negative. She and her family live in Monmouth IL and will be traveling to University of Iowa hospitals for treatment. She will start on short term disability when treatment starts on or around Oct 9th. and she will loose 50% of income. Chemo will start on Oct 5th. along with immunotherapy every 3 weeks and surgery will be scheduled once this is complete- possibly April. They have to be aggressive with treatment because of the tripple negative. Stephanie also has a rheumatologist for an autoimmune disorder and has to get things approved from that side as well. Thankfully they are insured but picking up 20% will be a huge impact on the family as well.

Thank you for any support you can give to this family over the next year and going forward to provide for the needs of daily life in addition to the added expenses of the medical costs and travel expenses during this time.

10/3Stephanie was seen in Iowa City today. There is concern over it moving to her lymph nodes. She will be back again on Monday for biopsy on that.

10/5

Stephanie will now be having treatments in Galesburg for Chemo and immunotherapy on Thursdays. Iowa City wouldn’t have been able to get her started until November. Chemo starts today.

She will still have the additional biopsy, other scans and surgery in Iowa City and the doctors are referring between the two locations. And she will be having a mastectomy opposed to the lumpectomy originally thought. Monday they will be checking the lymph nodes.

Thank you