Stephanie Moyer

Stephanie Moyer is a teacher by profession, and as her younger sister, she has been a teacher to me my entire life. My sister continues to amaze me as she teaches me about strength, courage, resilience, love and compassion through her own difficult journey. My hope for her through this go fund me is to lessen the financial impact of her recent diagnosis and to provide some peace about the journey ahead.

Stephanie's story:

Hi Everyone! This is a long one but an important one.

It has taken me some time to want to communicate the “new chapter” of my life here on social media because there are things that I feel that need hold close to my heart for awhile to process them and feel the raw emotion of them. However, now is the time to do this as I have been gently “reminded” that putting myself “out there” may help someone else.

I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma (a type of breast cancer-yep- there are different ones) in January of 2012. Addie was 3, Aaron was not born yet, and Tony was 5 years in remission from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. We did what we needed to do: months of chemo, bilateral mastectomy, and an extra year of infusions for my cancer type. I had the best pathology results possible of NED (no evidence of disease) in my breast tissue and my lymph nodes. However, since my cancer was estrogen positive (which basically means that the estrogen in my body helps it reproduce) I started anti-estrogen therapies. I began a daily anti-estrogen pill, Tamoxifen which I continued until recently, and I had anti-estrogen injections for 5 years on top of that. I was doing what I thought I needed to do to keep this awful disease away.

This past August, my entire world was shaken when I experienced what I thought was a possible rupture of my breast implant. I went for a breast MRI and they shared that the implant was fine but there was something suspicious on my chest wall behind my implant. This was immediately concerning because it was on same side as my original cancer. Over the next few weeks, Tony, my rock and superhero, pushed and advocated for me. He was on the phone lining up the rest of my scans and calling and calling and calling back to bug about the urgency of scheduling them. After I had gone through the slew of other tests: chest CT, bone scan, abdominal CT, liver biopsy and brain MRI it was shared with us that I have stage 4 metastatic breast cancer that originated at my original cancer site. Over time this cancer has gone into my bones (spine, ribs and pelvis) and into my liver. The ONLY reason that we caught it this early was because of a cracked rib which I thought was my 10 year implant rupturing. I still continue to have NO pain or concerns that anything would be wrong. Scary.

As mentioned above, I needed to grieve this news, talk about options and get into my BEAST mode before I posted this. You all need to know

this is not in anyway my death sentence. Sure, I had to take time off work to make my way through the dreaded chemo () which they have high hopes for working since it has been so long since I had it. And I also have a 5 minute shot (seriously guys it lasts that long) every 3 weeks that bonds to the Her2 marker in my cancer and destroys it. But, I am fight mode you all because to be blunt I am pissed that my kids have to go through this. That we have to go through this.

I have accepted the reality that the medical community will consider me cancer free again and that I will never be unmediated, however, I will be watched more closely and that gives me peace.

Currently, we are waiting the genetic marker tests to come back from the lab so that we can get into some clinical research trials.

So, if YOU don’t mind saying some prayers for me, my family, maybe some extra ones for my kids, It would be so appreciated. I am going to need my village to help build me up through this. God is good and is in control of this. He has already shown me the tremendous love that I am surrounded by each and everyday through peoples actions and genuine support and kindness.