Gastric Cancer | Stephanie’s Story

[MUSIC] One day I just had this uncontrolled pain in my stomach that brought me to my knees, and from there on is history. I went to my doctor, and one test led to another, led to another, but just my gut feeling told me something was wrong, and me trying to self diagnose, and treat myself just wasn't good enough any more. [MUSIC] I was diagnosed with stage 3C adenocarcinoma of the stomach, which is not, outcomes are not good. Prognosis is very poor. And the thing that I appreciated was that my surgeon, Dr. Duncan, he verbalized all this to me. He was very up front, this is how serious the situation is, however, you don't fit that mold, so you're gonna read all this stuff on the Internet. You're gonna see all these articles coming out, but just remember you don't fit that mold. Within my surgery, my entire stomach was removed. And he did this [INAUDIBLE] procedure so he was actually able to make like a little pouch, I call it my pseudo tummy, out of my intestine. So the first couple of years, like I'd say the first year and a half, was very difficult because I was still very much in my old habits where I could eat anything and everything. I could eat as much as I wanted. And it was very hard habit to break. [MUSIC] So I met my fiance, it was after I was finally done with my chemotherapy, and we went out for a football game. I was meeting up with mutual friends of ours and he happened to have been there, and I was there, wigged up and all, and we just hit it off. [MUSIC] At the time when I was diagnosed, I was getting ready to apply to PT school, to do physical therapy. And of course having to put all of that on hold, and then to be kinda thrown into this new life and this new journey, and coming across all of these wonderful men and women that just had such a positive impact on my life. I just knew that I could do something more, that I knew I was gonna come out of this and I needed to give it back. So I am now an oncology nurse at the local hospital that I did my chemo treatments at. I was very inspired throughout my journey by all of the medical staff that was a part of it, especially the nurses. [MUSIC] Eric and I will be getting married October 3, 2015. And I wanted to wait. We've been engaged already for a year. But I wanted to wait in particular because I will be at my five year, hallelujah, it's over mark next October. So we have all these plans to go ahead and I'll have my PET scan done and then that, I can close the book to that chapter and move forward. And that will be my whew, it's okay to move on. That will be my moment, and so celebrating in five years by getting married and having all my closest friends and family there. Dr. Duncan's gonna be there even, so, I mean what better way to celebrate than a celebration of our love, and then just a celebration of life. Because I can now breathe a lot easier, so [LAUGH], it's pretty significant to us. [MUSIC]