Facing Cancer Pregnant – And Helping Other Women To Overcome

It was a cold December morning when Sara Erzen began her first round of heavy chemotherapy. At the time, she was 26 weeks pregnant. Five weeks earlier she had gotten the call from her doctor while standing in her kitchen; what was originally dismissed as excess breast tissue during pregnancy turned out to be Stage 3 Ductal Carcinoma, an invasive breast cancer.

With a baby on the way, and two other young girls to care for, a breast lump was the last thing on Sara’s mind. Either way, the advanced staged cancer needed to be immediately addressed. Such intense treatment would normally be fatal to an unborn child in the first trimester, but babies in such late stages of pregnancy tend to fair well with the drugs.

12 weeks into treatment, a healthy baby girl was born with a full head of hair. Sara, on the other hand, had lost all of hers. A long road still lays ahead. She would have had to go through 4 more rounds of chemo, a mastectomy and radiation.

Today, five years later, Sarah is cancer free. She has a full head of hair and a beautiful daughter named Adeline. Her family never left her side, and according to Sara, if it weren’t for them she wouldn’t be alive.

Despite the constant battle, Sara seems to have taken something positive out of the experience. “I have a passion for helping others with our story and am convinced cancer was my vessel to reach others. Through all of this, my husband carried us. He’s my rock, my best friend, and I cannot imagine stepping through life with anyone else. November 6, 2018, we celebrate 5 years from diagnosis. Cancer isn’t a curse. It isn’t a blessing, either- but it empowered me, showing me that no matter what, I’ll never stop dancing.”

And you can watch Sara, and her daughter Adeline, take the floor with professional dancers from the Fred Astaire Dance Studios at the Dancing with Survivors fundraiser. The Pink Fund, a charity aimed at supporting cancer patients during treatment and an organization Sara has become very close to, is holding their premier event on October 5th at the Silver Garden Event Center in Detroit.

To help more people like Sara visit https://www.pinkfund.org/