Melissa ’s Story

Site created on December 30, 2019

After19 years of service to United Family Medicine, Melissa was pursued by Centerplace Health for an open CEO position in Sarasota, Florida. After accepting the new position and making the big move, she was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer (invasive lobular carcinoma) which has spread to her lymph nodes. With scanning, we found out it wasn’t anywhere else in her body. The health care system in Florida is slow so Melissa flew home and with the help from a few angels from United Family Medicine, had all her scans and testing done at United Hospital Breast Center within one week.

Fortunately for Melissa, the Moffit Cancer Center in Tampa Florida is one of the top 3 centers in the nation. Although the journey will be long, the success rate is excellent.

The Journey Begins

12/19/19: Melissa meets with the cancer specialist and the treatment regiment is put into place.
Melissa will have 16 rounds of Chemo. (One round every two weeks), followed by a mastectomy and radiation.

12/23/19: Melissa has the ECHO to determine if her heart can take the new chemo regiment.

12/26/19: Melissa has her port put in for all blood work and infusions.

12/27/19: Melissa has her first round of (red devil) Chemo infusion. 

The day was long, but with her kids by her side, she was one brave soldier. 

12/28/19: Melissa went to the emergency room with a mild fever but came out with no infection. In fact, the doctors said her white blood cell count was really good for just having chemo. We are not sure where the fever came from. But the doctors best guess was a diagnosis of Mountain Dew withdrawal.  On another note, Sarasota Memorial had the hottest lab and nurse staff. That helped make this trip bareable.

We we would like to thank everyone for their well wishes, prayers and calls.  This caring bridge site will be updated regularly and we respectively ask that you refer to this site for updates so we can allow Melissa more rest time. 

Newest Update

February 07, 2020

Journal entry by Karen Terry —

Sorry for the delay in responding but round 3 was a rough one.  January 24, round 3 of the chemo referred to as the “red devil”, gave Melissa her roughest week yet.  Melissa lost her hair and slept a lot to fight off the chemo fog.  The worst part continues to be the heartburn and awful taste in her mouth. (water taste like hamburger grease and makes her sick to her stomach).  She was not able to eat for a few days and took a little longer to recuperate, but she stayed positive and made it for round 4. 

Today, February 7th, was the final round of the red devil chemo.   The picture attached is a picture of the sky outside Moffitt Cancer Center as we walked into the lobby to ring hr bell of completion for this awful chemo.  Seeing the red sky when we walked into the lobby was surreal.  Even though she still has 4 more rounds, she beat the red devil and is half way through the battle!
Read More of the journal titled "February 07, 2020"
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