Cancer victim seek assistance for therapy

BERLIN — After an unsuccessful battle against breast cancer using the traditional chemotherapy treatment, a Berlin mother of two is hoping to head off to Mexico to try some less-traditional immunotherapy.

And while insurance companies are willing to pay for the traditional treatments, even though they didn’t work against this particular cancer, Ashadee Miller and her family are in the fight of their lives to raise funds for her upcoming treatment.

“They would like me to start tomorrow,” Miller said.

The only hold-up is the $70,000 they need to pay for the treatment.

“Unfortunately, anything really good for you, insurance doesn’t want to cover,” she added.

Her sister-in-law, Jolene Miller, has started a fund page online. The link is: Donorbox.org/​ashadee-miller-medical-fund. There is also an Ashadee Miller Benefit Fund set up through their church at any branch of the Commercial & Savings Bank for anyone interested in helping her continue her battle.

“We’re going to blast this out and share it as many places as we can,” Miller said. “We would like to get there by Oct. 8. Our kids are in school, and with the holidays coming up, we’d like to be there sooner, rather than later.

“We are encouraged by the doctors here, as well as the doctors there, that it would be in our best interest to get there as soon as we can,” she added. “If we can raise the money and be there by Oct. 8, that would be a huge blessing.”

FIRST SIGNS OF CANCER

Miller, 35, is a mother of two, a 9-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter. She is a fitness trainer at the Berlin Resort and had worked herself into the best shape of her life last September when she was first diagnosed and treated at University Hospital in Cleveland.

“I found a bump under my armpit,” she said. “I had been working out really hard, lost 40 pounds and was in the best shape of my life. So when I found it, I was encouraged to check it out, never thinking cancer.

“The size was like half a centimeter, nothing drastic, and when I was at my daughter’s preschool assessment medical appointment, our family doctor, Kim Hill, essentially saved my life,” Miller continued. “If she didn’t pull me aside, and send me for an ultrasound, I don’t know what would’ve happened. Technicians saw nothing, but added they can’t be 100 percent sure without a biopsy.”

Dr. Peabody in Wooster, a breast specialist, did the biopsy. He said he didn’t see any bad signs.

“That was a Monday morning. By Thursday morning, around 8 a.m., he called me and said the test came back positive for cancer,” Miller said. “That was the most mind-numbing thing I’d ever heard.”

Thinking it was a low-stage cancer, the Millers began working toward a cure.

“All through those next confusing weeks and months, I anchored on the fact that God is good, and he made me stronger than I ever thought possible,” she said. “I’m glad I was able to vocalize that the very first day that I found out. As time went on, we were referred to University Hospital, meeting with oncologists and tests. The cancer had spread beyond my breast to under my arm, which is never a good thing.”

It was an aggressive form of cancer.

The doctors there recommended chemotherapy that she later learned was not effective, after 11 rounds at $38,000 per treatment, she said.

She also had a double mastectomy.

“After all that, I still did not know what stage cancer it was,” she said.

So they went to the James Cancer Center in Columbus and found out they could receive treatment locally in Wooster at a branch of the James.

“I found out I have stage 3 breast cancer,” Miller said. “I have two different types of cancer, one is inside (contained) and the other is outside. It is grade 3, how aggressive it is, and three is the highest grade.”

It was at the James where they discovered the type of cancer she has is not responsive to chemotherapy.

DIDN’T HAVE TO DO CHEMOTHERAPY

“I went through all of this because I was fighting for my life, my husband of 13 years, my two kids, and you do the math and add it all up, it’s sickening,” Miller said. “We still have to pay bills for something I didn’t have to do and would have chosen not to do. The doctors at the James said the cancer I have … only 6 percent that chemo would work. I doubt I ever would’ve opted to do chemotherapy if I had known that.”

She wondered how many other people have been put through that hell that they didn’t necessarily have to go through.

“That part has been hard,” Miller said. “The people at the James thought I knew my cancer was non-responsive to chemotherapy.”

She had 30 rounds of radiation treatment that ended at the end of July.

“Radiation burns you from the inside out,” she said. “It cooks you from the inside out. It takes about six to eight weeks to feel like yourself. My recovery requires a lot of rest, which puts a lot of pressure on my family.”

Her faith, along with her family has helped her tackle this.

Ashadee Miller grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and married Morgan Miller, who is from Holmes County. Miller is an airline pilot. They lived in Sugarcreek, moved to New York so he could finish his aviation training, and the couple has lived in Berlin the last three years. They attend Grace Mennonite Church.

Now, we are looking forward to this immunotherapy,” Miller said. “I have done nothing systematically to kill the radical cancer cells, which enables it to spread through the blood stream and into other parts of the body. These radical cells have been in my body a year and I have done nothing to kill them. That’s what immunotherapy will do: kill those free radical cancer cells that are in my body.”

Miller never thought she would have to choose between quality and quantity, but right now, she has chosen quality, and is praying really hard for quantity.

The immunotherapy is three weeks of intensive in-patient treatment in a facility in Tiajuana, Mexico, called Hope for Cancer. She would receive treatments every day from 7 a.m. until around 3 or 4 p.m. daily for three weeks. They monitor her for a year.

“Once this is done, this is my only chance, and it has me a little freaked out,” Miller said. “After that, we’re not really sure what we’re going to do. We’re doing everything we know possible to lower my risk of reoccurrence. For me, it’s worth it, because I want to live.”

Reporter Kevin Lynch can be reached at 330-674-5676 or [email protected].

CREDIT: KEVIN LYNCH