On January 24, 2014 at 4:45 pm I was diagnosed with stage 3B, almost C, triple negative inflammatory breast cancer. A day I will never forget! I remember crying the entire weekend but then I woke up on Monday morning with a mission. A mission to fight!

I was only 39 years old when I was diagnosed. I celebrated my 40th birthday in the chemo chair because as luck would have it, I was scheduled to get chemo on the day of my birthday. It wasn’t all bad though. It’s certainly a birthday I won’t forget! My sister made me cupcakes to share at chemo, the whole chemo room sang to me and my beautiful friend Shannon, who I met during treatment, bought me a special gift. I made many wonderful friends on this journey. That night my sister and parents had a little birthday celebration for me just to make it even more special. 

My husband and I were only married for 4 years. We were trying to conceive and looking for a house when everything came to a screeching hault. I didn’t know if I was pregnant or if I’d live to see another year. We tried one round of iui because of my age and I never thought I’d be so happy to hear I actually wasn’t pregnant. I went through 6 months of chemo, a bilateral mastectomy and 6 weeks of radiation. I found out I was positive for the BRCA 1 gene. I later scheduled surgery to have my ovaries removed to reduce and prevent my risk of ovarian cancer as well. You can only imagine how devastating that was to my heart, knowing I’d never have biological children. Just another thing cancer took from me, right? Well you’ll soon know I’m not one to sit back and take life that way. 

I started to research and found a clinic in New York City that does natural cycle ivf. I did not feel comfortable taking the hormone medication due to my diagnosis even though I was triple negative and all the doctors said it would be safe. It just didn’t sit right with me. So when I found out natural cycle ivf was an option, I decided to try. I wanted to retrieve eggs before removing my ovaries and all chances of ever having a baby. After that appointment, I knew deep in my soul that I couldn’t go through with the surgery yet, so I postponed it for 2 months. In the meantime, I was able to retrieve two eggs. We ended up with 2 embryos at the end of the 2 months we had. I then went through with having my ovaries removed. 

Soon after my surgery, we started our search for a surrogate to carry our baby. Although I had my uterus it was too big of a risk for me. I would have needed hormone replacements to carry a child. We went through a lot of ups and downs but we finally found our Angel on earth, Joyce. She went on to transfer our only 2 biological embryos but they ended in a chemical pregnancy. We were devastated. I thought about giving up on my dreams. Who am I to fight God’s plans? What if I wouldn’t be here to raise my child? Then in a pivotal moment, a coworker gave me a gift. A wooden sign and a truly inspirational card. It said NEVER EVER GIVE UP, EVER! It really spoke to me and woke me up out of this pity party I was having. 

Through a lot of soul searching we decided to go ahead with embryo adoption. Through some more ups and downs (and there were a lot) we finally found our incredible donors, Shawn and Tiffany. They donated 4 embryos to us. Truly the best gift I will ever receive! We transferred 2 into our surrogate, Joyce in October of 2017 and both stuck. Through more ups and downs (I told you there were alot of them) we lost baby b at 9 weeks. It was very hard to mourn a miscarriage while still having gratitude and joy for our surviving baby. It was bittersweet but we were very grateful that the other baby was okay. He did well until our surrogate was 6 cm dilated. All of a sudden his placenta detached and he was bleeding out. We almost lost our beautiful son in those last moments. The doctor and team of nurses got him out in 1 1/2 minutes with an emergency C-section and we’re grateful every day. He spent 11 days in the NICU but came home to our arms on day 12. Our son Jack is;now the light of our lives and a healthy, smart, active boy!

This year I get to celebrate my 50th birthday and 10 year cancer NED anniversary, as well as my son’s 6th birthday. I hope my story can give you all going through this horrible disease, some hope. There is life after cancer. There may be mountains but the view from the top is beautiful!!

My motto through it all was “HOPE ALWAYS.” Bless you all!

Q&A with Kristine:

What helped get you through treatment? Remaining positive and leaning on my family and friends got me through treatment.

Do you have any advice for others with IBC? Live the dash. My friend Shannon who I met in treatment always said, It’s not the years you are here on earth. It’s not the year you are born or die that really matters. It’s how you live the dash between those 2 dates. Live life to the fullest!

Is there anything else you would like us to know? As my story goes beyond this short paragraph my survival is nothing short of “Divine Intervention”.

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