Supporting Stephanie in her Battle Against Cancer

Hello, my name is Hannah. I’m here on behalf of my beautiful sister, Stephanie. The picture above was taken on her wedding day in a moment we had alone. That was the happiest I’d ever seen her, and she wore that smile the whole day.

The signs only really began to show at the beginning of January with a growth that appeared on her right leg. After only a few weeks, several scans, and the most infinite feeling limbo, Steph has now been diagnosed with Stage 4 Synovial Sarcoma, a rare soft tissue cancer that has metastasized to her lung tissue. The tumor is not operable at this time, so she will begin chemotherapy in the next few months in effort to reduce the size and be a candidate for removal down the line.

Change in and of itself is rarely welcomed, but a change like this is quite a tough pill to swallow. As she prepares for her first round of chemo in the coming week, she is adapting and learning not only how to cope with this new reality, but how to be brave in a way I hope no one else ever has to know.

She is 34 years old, and she is a mother to her 15 year old daughter, Ava, and wife to her husband, Sven, and she’s my sister. When we were kids and she had just learned to drive, we would listen to whatever emo/pop mix she’d burnt on a CD from Limewire the night before with the windows down and singing as loud (mainly her) as we could. She would take me sometimes to Sonic to get an Oreo milkshake for breakfast before school (because we were kids and why not?). My sister is loud and funny and kind, she has been an absolute menace and also an absolute angel at times. And my hope now is that we can do something sweet for her the way she did for me all those years ago. To show her that the love you give out to the world really does make its way back to you.

Please consider donating or sharing this so that we can rally behind her and help support her on this fight.

Thank you with all my love,

Hannah