Long Island Woman Raising Funds For Best Friend With Brain Cancer

HOLBROOK, NY — Like many childhood friends, Stacey Berzak and Kim Coyne have always been in constant contact over the phone — chatting just to catch up or make plans with each other.

They made plans last spring to meet up for dinner and drinks in Holbrook to celebrate Berzak’s father’s birthday on May 5, but their plans fell by the wayside when tragedy struck. On May 4, the pair spoke and Coyne told Berzak that she did not feel well while complaining of dizziness and nausea. She believed she might have COVID-19 and Berzak suggested she go to an urgent care facility not knowing that it would be the last conversation that she would have with her.

When Coyne didn't show up, Berzak thought nothing of it.

“I wasn't really gonna throw up alarms because she had already conveyed that she wasn't feeling well,” said Berzak, who lives in Holbrook. “Yeah, and you know, that was it. That was the last coherent conversation I had with her.”

The person Coyne is today is not who she was five months ago.

“She was free-spirited and eccentric and loved life, and you know really knew how to take it by the horns,” Berzak said. “She's 100% bedridden; 100% reliant on others to take care of her.”

When Coyne showed up for her job as a bus driver with the Riverhead School District, she had a unicorn horn taped to her forehead and was extremely confused, so her employer called 911, Berzak explained. A CT scan at Peconic Bay Medical Center later revealed she had a brain tumor and she was immediately transferred to Stony Brook University Medical Center.

“She went to Stony Brook but she never really regained all of her faculties,” Berzak said.

Coyne, 40, of Ronkonkoma, was later diagnosed with a Stage 4 Glioblastoma for which there is no surgical option.

“They can't resect the tumor because they'll likely end up either blinding her or killing her during surgery,” Berzak said. “So it's kind of just been touch-and-go.”

Coyne has been on radiation and has had three brain surgeries, including the placement of a shunt to drain the fluid off her brain to reduce some of the inflammation from the tumor.

It’s something that pains Berzak who knows her since they first met as little girls in the lunchroom at school.

“She is at a point now where she can't hold a conversation,” Berzak said. “She doesn't really know what's going on. She's just a shell of who she was five months ago.”

Coyne has now been placed on hospice with an estimated six months left to live. Her mother is caring for her seven days a week as her sisters and Berzak alternate days to help out because it is a two-person job to move her out of bed or get her showered.

Coyne’s mother has also not been able to work since May and the bills are mounting, said Berzak, who has started a GoFundMe to help with out-of-pocket costs that insurance does not cover, such as better quality medical supplies.

So far, it has raised about $2,765 toward its $10,000 goal.

Berzak said it is the least she can do for her longtime friend.

She considers Coyne the kindest person she has ever met, and described her as someone who would do anything for anyone in need.

“She was what I would call the life of the party,” Berzak said. “If you wanted to have a party, you invited Kim because she was a ball laughs — all the time. She always had the funniest stories, and you know she would always throw her own spin on things, and make them even more hilarious than they originally were.”

“She was just a vibrant person,” she added.

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