Story
Name
Danet Peterson
Injury/Illness
Cancer
Meet Danet. ❤️ She is a 33-year-old book-loving, singing, super creative wife, mother, sister, daughter, and friend. She is married to her sweetheart, Danny, and they have 3 adorable children together.
4.5 years ago, their lives were turned upside down when Danet was diagnosed with a rare cancer — ocular melanoma. The cancer originally started in her eye, resulting in radiation treatment and ultimately enucleation (removal of her eye). She did all she could to prevent the spread of the cancer to other parts of her body. But even after treating and removing her cancerous eye, scans came back with the heart-wrenching news that the cancer had spread to her liver.
The last 2.5 years of Danet’s life have been spent battling a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. This means scans at least every 3 months, possibly more often depending on the results. She has frequent doctor’s visits, has changed her diet, and has been utilizing both modern/western medicine and holistic methods to try to manage the cancer. These changes have put a dramatic strain on not only her time and energy but also her family’s finances.
In 2022, Danet was hopeful that they caught the cancer early enough and that the radiation treatment performed on her eye would be successful in containing the cancer. But it was after a routine scan in the second half of 2022 that she received the horrible news that no cancer patient wants to hear: there was a recurrence of the cancer found in the liver. In November of 2022, she underwent an intensive surgery to try and remove the cancer from her liver. In the end, the surgery failed and she had to undergo another procedure to tackle the remaining area. Not only was Danet’s liver compromised, her doctor was also worried that her treated eye was problematic as well. It was at this point that Danet and her doctor decided it would be best to remove the eye altogether, and in December of 2022, Danet once again underwent a major procedure to enucleate her eye.
2023 provided a much needed respite from her cancer recurrence. Her frequent scans came back clean. In 2024, Danet’s doctor revealed there was a spot on her liver that needed to be treated. They decided that Danet would need another surgery to remove a chunk of her liver to try and contain any spreading cancer. In April 2024, she underwent liver resection surgery and hoped for success. A couple months later, scans revealed that they had missed a spot of the cancer in her previous surgery and Danet would have to undergo another treatment.
In June 2024, she underwent a histotripsy treatment to address the missed spot. This procedure required traveling out of state and insurance would not approve it prior to the procedure. Danet and Danny had to pay the cost up front and work with the hospital finance department to get the cost reduced from 50k to 20k. Months after the procedure, insurance finally came through and approved and paid for it. However, they informed Danet that if she needs histotripsy again she will have to go through the whole appeal process again. This is just one example of many to portray the many stresses (financially, emotionally, depletion of precious time, etc) she and her family have had to endure over the past several years.
On December 31, 2024, Danet got the results from her most recent scans. While many were celebrating bright futures, Danet would get the news that the cancer had spread in her liver, needing urgent treatment.
Throughout this journey, Danet has pursued high-quality treatments with integrative oncology care. This care provides options that are less invasive, easier to recover from, and that increase the quality of life for patients. The problem is that many of these treatment options are not covered by insurance. The ongoing years of this diagnosis have brought a lot of unknowns, including a ton of ongoing medical expenses each year that weigh heavily on her young family.
One of Danet’s mantras that helps her face this cancer battle is, “I am here today, I will be here tomorrow, and eventually, the tomorrows add up.” Would you please consider donating and helping Danet’s tomorrows add up?