Support Nicole Young's Battle Against Rare Cancer

Hi, I’m Tricia and I would like to give you the opportunity to support Nicole Young & her family as they face another challenge in the battle for Nicole’s life.

Nicole is a 34-year-old mother of three babies (8, 5, 3). Nicole has been a nurse for entire career, in the ICU where she provided life saving care to so many people in the community. She currently serves as a Nurse Manager, who is still focused on learning and changing healthcare practice to improve working conditions of nurses and provide the highest evidence based care to the patients in the community.

Unfortunately, Nicole is battling a very rare cancer, Solid Basaloid Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma, that began as breast primary. Nicole was in active treatment for two years, and unfortunately, it was the wrong treatment. She completed treatment in June of 2023, only to be devastated to learn her cancer return six months later. Nicole had two surgeries to remove tumors from her lung. Based on a send out test, Caris testing, Nicole received the correct diagnosis for her cancer. Initially, it seemed like great news, but the truth is there isn’t any approved treatments in the metastatic setting. in the past six months since surgery, her disease extended into the lymph nodes of her lung. Because this cancer is so rare, Nicole will have to be treated at Dana Farber, where she is currently on a clinical trial. She will have to travel back and forth weekly to Boston, while also keeping up working her full-time job as a Nurse Manager at Hampden Medical Center.

Cancer and cancer treatment are a huge financial burden, and any little bit helps to offset the travel, food, and to help keep their life functioning at home. Nicole is determined to keep life as normal as possible for her babies and to battle this with courage and grace.