Hello, my name is Tieka. On 12/5/25, I went into the emergency room around 6:30 pm with severe abdominal pain and throwing up everything I attempted to eat and drink. After they did a CT scan, they found what they thought at the time was appendicitis. They scheduled me for surgery the next morning at 8:30 am to remove my appendix.

At my follow-up appointment, my surgeon gave me the news that what they thought was appendicitis was actually a 6 cm cancerous tumor that had escaped my appendix. The initial plan was to test the lymph nodes for any cancer and start chemotherapy immediately after.

When I went in on 1/15/26 for my scheduled surgery, before they could complete the surgery, they found white spots throughout my abdomen and immediately tested them. It turns out those white spots were cancer. Cancer had spread through my abdomen like grains of sand; therefore, the surgery and testing of the lymph nodes were no longer necessary. The next day, on 1/16/26, they installed a port used for administering chemotherapy medications during treatment.

Upon meeting with the oncologist this past Monday, I was told that it is, in fact, appendix cancer that has escaped the appendix and is now considered stage 4 and hard to treat. He set a plan in place to start me on 12 rounds of chemo locally and referred me to Stanford in San Francisco for further treatment.

With all of that being said, as you can imagine, this news has hit my family like a ton of bricks and this is just the beginning. The road to what I hope is a full recovery is going to be a long one. The medical bills are already flowing in even with insurance, and soon with a referral to Stanford in SF, I will need to do regular traveling for treatment, which will add on even more.

This already has and will continue to add up fast. I don't normally reach out to anyone for help, but this is going to be my family's toughest time and we will need as much help as possible getting through this. I thank you so much for your consideration and support.

❤️ Tieka