Support Courtney Carter's Battle with Cancer

Hello, my name is Courtney Carter.

I am a single mother of three children beautiful children, Amiri he is 11 months old who’s about to turn one on January 31st, who was also diagnosed with Down syndrome at birth. Kaleb my 15 year old son and Alexis my 17 year old daughter.

They have watched their mama go from being this independent super mom, their entire life who works Every day and takes care of everything and everyone to a mom that can barely get out of bed most days and can’t take care of her self right now.

March, 6th 2024 the day that turned our life and family up side down,

I found out I had stage two aggressive, invasive breast cancer on top of that, my hormones were positive receptors working against me! The doctor said if we had not have found it. I would be in stage four by December, that’ how aggressive my cancer is.

April 15 I had my tumor removed had a partial mastectomy along with four lymph nodes and two smaller tumors in the breast. Recovery was painful but went by fast.

May 14th I went back to work I felt like I was ready to get back to life the best way i could and being the only income in our home I had no choice. I stated chemo may 15th, we went with the most aggressive form of chemo as I have a lot of things working against me, little did I know chemo would not be very nice to me! I did chemo every other week, driving over 50 minutes each way for treatment, the weeks during chemo I was so sick, hanging over throwing up, running high fevers I couldn’t move my body was so sore, I couldn’t stand as every muscle was sore. I just cried wishing it would get better. I was so sick on chemo weeks I couldn’t go to work on those weeks. I hated it I felt like I was letting everybody down. I went to work the weeks I didn’t have chemo even though I still was pretty sick and not feeling well I pushed through as best I could and I tried to do my very best!

I was hospitalized a few times through my treatments my body got so weak. I was getting infections left and right! I went through this all the way up till September 6.

which was my last chemo treatment unfortunately, my last round of chemo was the worst I ended up in the hospital for almost 8 days. I had three viruses, on top of all the chemo side effects!

. I was so sick, My daughter had to call for help as she watched her mom just lay there lifeless looking like a ghost, my body was just completely run down and tried. She made the right call for her mama, I definitely needed the hospital.

The doctor told me if I went back to work. I’d be causing more damage to my body because I really needed rest so work and the doctor put me on short term disability. It was just supposed to be just for a few weeks.! I went through the whole process. I waited months for a payment that just seemed to never come, I struggled. I was selling things to make ends meet, asking for money to help pay bills, emptying savings accounts. Everything I worked so hard for my entire life was gone in what seemed to be weeks.

I started radiation October 1 2024, it was supposed to be the easiest thing I went through with no problems…….of course my body still recovering from chemo and sickness It didn’t go well either I end up getting blisters all over my breast that busted open and caused infections all over my breast and then I got lymphedema inside the breast, which was extremely painful, as fuild was just laying on my nerves.

All of this kept me on short-term disability, just a little longer, not allowing me to go back to work as I can’t lift anything, because it could have injured my breast more.

I went through physical therapy to help with the lymphedema. It also took some creams and anabiotic‘s to get my breast back to normal..

December I had an appointment with the OB/GYN. I had some irregular cells showing in my cervix showing pre-cancer cells. They were already gonna take my ovaries out because they needed to shut down my hormones to stop the cancer from growing, but last minute as I was laying on the operating table we decided to do a full hysterectomy so that we could cancel out the pre-cancer cells and save me down the road from cancer growth there!

All of this put me into long-term disability. This also made me lose my insurance through work. My surgery was scheduled on Christmas Eve day it was supposed to be a day surgery. I went in Christmas Eve morning. Surgery did not go as planned I had a bad reaction to the anesthesia took me hours to wake up and I couldn’t stay awake once they get me awake, they finally thought I was good to walk to the bathroom after hours of laying in bed waking up, I stood up and all I remember was a team of nurses surrounding me and sticking me with a blood sugar! I completely pasted out on them!

so they wind up keeping me overnight the next day they told me I lost too much blood during surgery so we had to do two blood transfusions, on top of that I was in significant amounts of pain to the point. I was bawling so they did a CAT scan and they found a hematoma on my bladder. They decided to let it alone and said it would go away on its own, but they were going to keep me in the hospital as my bladder had been blocked and they would have to put a catheter inside me to get it unblocked. I finally went home on Friday .

I got to spend two days at home and I was right back on Monday New Year’s Eve day! I was in so much pain I couldn’t move or stand, my family woke up and found my curled up in a ball just crying.

Once at the hospital, they did a CAT scan was told I had another hematomas this one was wrapping around the pelvis and one wrapping around the bladder so they transported me back up to Westshore Hospital, where I underwent another surgery to have them drained and removed. I spent another week in the hospital yesterday….I was told I have an abscessed that ruptured which thankfully is right beside the drain bag, but is extremely painful and I smell like death.

I am on anabiotic‘s, but once again, my insurance was canceled on Christmas Eve at midnight so everything is out of pocket and expensive my doctor bills are racking up quickly!

as of right now, I know I am down for at least the next 12 to 14 weeks. I’m currently still on bedrest I can’t lift anything and I can barely walk. It’s hard just to get up and down. It’s extremely painful actually. I have a long recovery ahead of me and I am just praying for recovery! I am trying not to stress but this is extremely hard and I am trying so hard but I need help.

I never ask for help, I always have to much pride, but I know I need to ask because I truly need it!

if you can help just know I appreciate everything even if it’s just a 1$, and if you can’t donate, please share maybe someone you know can help, or please say a prayer

Thank you everyone for reading my story I appreciate you ❤️❤️❤️