Stephanie's Journey: Battling Cancer Together

Hi! My name is Stephanie. I don't even know where to start, so I am going to jump right in. I live in Las Vegas with my husband (Bill), daughters (Chelsea and Heather), and my dad. Most of us live in the same house.

Nearly 3 years ago, I got a great job which, most important to this story, included health insurance that I could afford to use (that's a whole different rant). Last year, I found a great primary doc and started catching up on health maintenance and routine testing.

Type II diabetes? Check. Got that under control.

Cholesterol? Check.

Mammogram. Well, I've been putting that off for too long.

Colonoscopy. Not exactly a day at the beach, but let's get that done to get the all clear.

First came the mammogram. That came back abnormal. The diagnostic mammogram also came back abnormal. "Generally suspicious left breast." Let's do a biopsy. That came back as benign, but still high risk (complex sclerosing lesion) and they would like to get an excisional biopsy of the area to make sure it's not hiding a cancer. While I was waiting to meet with the surgeon to schedule that procedure, we had my colonoscopy.

Waking up from the colonoscopy, my doctor was there, asking if they could bring in my support person. He needed to tell me that they were unable to complete the procedure because they were blocked by a mass that looked like cancer. That was confirmed by pathology a couple of days later.

Diagnosis: ADENOCARCINOMA, MODERATELY DIFFERENTIATED

We still don't know everything. The good news is that they haven't found any evidence of metastasis. We're still waiting on some imaging and test results to determine how locally advanced it is.

So far, my care team all seems to agree that we're looking at 16 weeks of chemo/radiation prior to surgery, then 6-12 months of IV chemotherapy after. We still need to find time for the breast surgical biopsy somewhere in that time.

So, here is the reason for my ask. It has only been a couple of weeks, and the bills are already starting to look daunting. My HSA is going to be drained any day now. My job has been more supportive than I ever expected, and they do have resources for short-term disability. That said, I have no idea how much time I am going to need off. Losing even a day's pay every week would fairly quickly cause a problem.