Before I tell Mandi's story, many have asked how they can help. Visit the Planner page (link above) and sign up to bring a meal on a Tu or Th night!
Where do I begin to tell the story of how we discovered Mandi's cancer? It starts with her not feeling well off and on for the last six months. Joeseph, Mandi, and I had been recovering from COVID, and it seemed to be lingering past its expected duration. Mandi is a nurse and has been working around and with Covid patients. She was vaccinated but began to experience returning symptoms around the time she received her booster shot. The following week, she had a grand mal seizure while we were having our morning coffee and reading the news. It was a shock to us both and very scary and surreal. I had to call 911 while I watched Mandi have what I thought at the time was a stroke. Luckily the 911 agent talked me through what to do while I waited for the ambulance to arrive. When Mandi came out of the seizure, she couldn't speak for 10 minutes. She only recognized me and didn't know where she was in our home for about 20 minutes. The paramedics told me this is entirely normal when someone comes out of seizures, but it was the most frightened I have ever been.
After our emergency room visit, the doctor ordered Keppra for Mandi to possibly stop another seizure from occurring. He said this would prevent them while we ran some tests to determine the cause. Mandi was still not feeling great, but we decided to go out and celebrate her birthday about a month after her seizure with some of her family. We planned a spa day, a nice dinner, and just relaxing time together to celebrate Mandi's birthday. Mandi had a very rough night in our hotel room after dinner. She was not feeling well at all and did not get much sleep. I told her to take another spa treatment and to get a massage after we ate breakfast and said goodbye to family. I told her I would pack our room and get everything ready to go while she relaxed. While I packed, I got a call from my brother-in-law telling me he was walking by the spa when they recognized him and said Mandi had a seizure after her massage. I rushed down to the spa to find her recovering from another seizure.
Thank God her sister had been alerted by my brother-in-law as she was working out nearby and was with her when I arrived. Shortly after, she was taken to another emergency room in another ambulance. More tests were run, but it was also determined that she had missed multiple doses of her Keppra.
This pushed us to have every test we could think of to try and determine what could cause these episodes. As we ran tests, they found what appeared to be a lump in Mandi's left breast. After a rough biopsy, it was determined that Mandi had two malignant masses in her left breast. We were told initially that they were small and she would need a lumpectomy with some radiation after the procedure. They ordered another MRI to be sure and realized it was one 6 cm (stage 3) malignant Lobular B breast cancer. This type of cancer is aggressive. Because of the new prognosis, it was determined that Mandi would start chemotherapy asap. She is going to be undergoing some very intense chemotherapy to try and shrink the mass before having a double mastectomy.
Mandi is tough. Mandi is a fighter. Mandi has the support of her close family and friends, and she will beat this with God's will. We ask that everyone please keep her in your prayers to help her in the fight ahead. She is extremely appreciative and grateful for everyone's love and support. Our family is very thankful for friends and loved ones. We wish everyone great tidings and hope you all are doing well!
We have been waiting to give everyone an update for a while. We just got the pathology report this week after Mandi's second surgery, and everything looks good!! She is still healing after the infection, and her wound is still open, but we are headed in the right direction. She will have to be on hormone blockers for the next five to ten years, she will be taking a chemo pill for the next two years, and we are meeting the radiologist in the next few weeks to get get her radiation started. Overall great news, and hopefully, we are on the backside of breast cancer! Thank you again for all your prayers!
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