Support Laurie Germ's Fight Against Cancer

My name is Haley White, and I am creating this page on behalf of my mom, Laurie Germ. My mom had a very unforeseen last couple of months, here’s her story:

It all began in early August; she had an appointment with her primary doctor on the 5th. At that time, she was tested for a UTI, which came back negative. The next step was to get a vaginal ultrasound, it was scheduled for August 23rd. This revealed a uterine fibroid that was 10.9cm. At this point they wanted her to follow up with an OBGYN specialist. She scheduled the first available appointment on September 10th. In the meantime, she started not feeling the best, was having a harder time urinating and had more abdominal pressure. On September 6th she woke up unable to urinate at all, she immediately went to the ER. They did an x-ray, followed by an abdominal CT scan. They found that her fibroid was now 12.2cm and it was compressing her uterus, kidneys and bladder which is why she couldn’t pee. They placed a foley catheter, and sent her home, the plan was to follow up with OB on September 10th. During that appointment the doctor explained that a total hysterectomy was the best option to remove the fibroid. The surgery was planned for September 16th. When my mom got to the hospital, her surgery was canceled due to a medication she had taken. They worked hard to get her in as soon as possible, and surgery was rescheduled for September 23rd. On the 23rd my mom was ready, preop was complete, preop meds given and at the last minute the doctor tells her there is a problem with her blood, they found an antibody they can’t identify. This is very rare, and he has only seen this twice in his 30 years in medicine. Sadly, they couldn’t move forward with the surgery because they wouldn’t have any blood available if needed. She left the hospital very disappointed that day. The doctor called the following day and reported the lab identified this antibody as a “warm auto antibody”. Surgery was rescheduled for Friday September 27th. My mom went in for preop at 10am, this was planned to be a 2 hour robotic hysterectomy. Hours went by, my grandma (my moms mom) and I were waiting. We had a gut feeling something wasn’t right. At 4:30pm the OR nurse called and stated that they found more than planned, but that my mom was stable. That was all the information we got, we waited a few more hours. Finally, at 7pm the OB doctor and another surgeon came out, and by the look on their faces, we knew it wasn’t good. We were taken into another room where they explained all that they had found. They stated they found a 25cm tumor that was indeed not a fibroid at all. It was attached to her sigmoid colon, uterus and side wall. They knew taking it out was going to be the best chance my mom had, but it wasn’t going to be easy. They said the “fibroid” was actually a fast, aggressive growing tumor that was malignant (they sent the tumor off to pathology right away). Words can’t even begin to explain how hard it was to hear what they were telling us. The trauma surgeon explained that she had become unstable, losing a lot of blood (they thought around 3L). She received 4 units of blood, platelets, plasma and cryo. They couldn’t complete the surgery, so they stapled each side of her colon together (didn’t reattach) and left her abdomen open with a wound vac in place. The surgeon explained this type of surgery has never been done in Wausau, it is typically completed at a level 1 trauma center like Madison, but they knew removing this tumor was the best chance of survival for my mom, based on how fast it was growing. After 7 hours in surgery, she was sent to the ICU intubated. They needed to stabilize her for several days before they could finish the surgery. It was heartbreaking getting through these 2 days. She needed 2 more units of blood during this time. On Sunday morning (September 29th) she had another 4.5 hours in the OR to close her abdomen, create an ostomy and make sure the bleeding had stopped. They extubated her later that day.

She woke up thinking she just had a basic hysterectomy, but her intuition must have told her something else was going on. She kept asking what had all happened. Later that evening after she was awake and off all her sedation meds, I sat down with her and explained everything that happened. Words cannot describe how sad she was, watching my mom go through this unexpected life changing trauma is heartbreaking.

My mom spent a total of 19 days in the hospital, there were a lot of bumps in the road. To name a few; she had a postop ileus, which didn’t resolve for 8 days, infection in her abdominal wound, with a partial dehiscence, which now requires her to have a wound vac. She had problems with her stoma and incision next to it, electrolyte imbalances, and gastritis just to name a few…

A CT scan was done prior to leaving the hospital which revealed a parastomal hernia (that will require future surgery) and a lung nodule that was not seen on her Sept. 6th scan. After approximately 10 days, the pathology came back with a heartbreaking diagnosis of stage 3 metastatic Leiomyosarcoma. Since this is a rare, aggressive and complex cancer they want her to be seen at UW Madison as soon as possible.

My mom was discharged October 15th and is currently staying with my husband John and I. We are helping her with her daily care and needs. Along with the daily struggles with wound and ostomy care, we also received more heartbreaking news on October 24th. Her CT scan of her chest revealed multiple new lung nodules changing this diagnosis from a stage 3 to a stage 4 metastatic leiomyosarcoma . She has 11 appointments in the next 2 weeks with one of them being UW Madison oncology. It is very difficult navigating this life changing diagnosis, we keep praying for miracles.

We have a long road ahead of us and a lot of unknowns for the future. My mom has always been a staple in our family, she is always the one to take care of everyone else. She is only 59 years old, she has so much living to do yet. She adores her one and a half year old granddaughter, and has another one on the way. No one deserves this diagnosis, and most definitely not her. She is so kindhearted, always putting others before herself.

Because she has a lot of upcoming appointments, trips to Madison, cancer treatments and medical bills, I created this page in hopes to offset some of the financial burden my mom and dad are going to endure. Thank you so much in advance.

As things progress, we will update this page. Please share her story.

~Haley White