Toni Palmer and her husband Ken went to college together and after he completed dental school, they were stationed in Camp LeJune, NC where he serve two years in the Navy (1980-1982 ). Not knowing how toxic the camp was, Ken got cancer in 2004 and died in 2017. Toni got breast cancer in 2013. After double mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and reconstructive surgery, she was clean of cancer till 2019.
In February of 2019 she was complaining of back pain, only to be misdiagnosed until November of 2019, when doctors detected Stage 4 Metastatic Breast cancer to the bone – incurable but treatable.
She was accepted into a clinical trial at Siteman in St. Louis but her cancer progressed in May 2020 and she was taken out of the trial. She went back to her doctor in Springfield and is doing standard of care treatment. By September 2020 the chemo has reached a toxic level and the side effects could be aplastic anemia which causes bone marrow to stop making stem cells. Her doctor is working with Siteman to see if she can enter a 3rd tier study.
Toni’s lifelong friend also recently retired and the friends had hoped to travel for however long they can. However, Toni is too ill to travel so Stella’s Wish will send a care package and a gift card to help pay for dinner with family for Christmas.
Toni has a positive outlook on life and recently wrote:
“So I don’t know what happens next, but I know that God is bringing me from this last treatment and leading me to the next one. My church is studying Colossians and the theme is Jesus is Greater!!! And we all know He is Greater than anything cancer can throw at me. All in God’s Time!!”