Michelle Ivanoff is 30 years young, mother of two amazing daughters, Ariyah and Audrinah, and married to Nik Ivanoff (me). This is her story, a trial of one, a battle with a rare Ovarian Cancer that has come uninvited.

For those of you who know Michelle, she is the most incredible, strong, resilient, outgoing, intelligent, loving, kind and genuine woman we know. Michelle and I married on October 1st 2011. In 2012 she went to school full time to become a Licensed Psychiatric Technician, we purchased our first home together, and things were great.

2013 came around quickly, and we found that Michelle had an 19cm mass that was attached to her ovary. The doctors discovered it was a very serious cancerous tumor and we were lucky to have caught it in time before it spread. The doctors removed just one ovary in hopes of preserving the other. Chemo ensued shortly after, and now a new journey began. Michelle stayed steadfast and strong, she even ministered to others to instill courage and hope for similar situations, she was a ray of hope to say the least. The doctors kept a close eye on her through 2014 and finally gave her a clean bill of health in October. Michelle finally was able to have her port removed, which meant no more chemo expected. This was fantastic, Michelle wanted to be healthy enough to have a baby if possible. However shortly after, in November, symptoms arose again.

Now 2015 is upon us, a pet CT revealed another mass had grown, and the doctors immediately scheduled for surgery. The surgery took 9 hours, afterwards the doctor approached me and informed me that the tumor was 10.6cm and had metastasized. 17 of 19 lymph nodes removed contained cancer and were malignant. He used an argon laser on everything that he could see in sight, removed the tumor and could not get everything.

It had spread. If this was the original diagnosis, it would have been Staged 3c. There are several locations within the abdominal cavity, intramuscular areas, and even on the bladder that the doctors could not remove with surgery. They said that chemo would be the first line of defense, and they would essentially take a wait and see approach. After 10 days in the hospital recovering, Michelle was released to go home and recover further. Nothing additional could be done until her full hysterectomy and debulking was past a certain point of recovery. Then the chemo began, with many infusions and countless hours of agonizing sickness she started losing hope. Emotions were running rampant and she came out a different person, having to relearn the courage and strength that she once knew. I pushed for a 2nd and 3rd opinion, and after the seriousness of it kicked in, we set appointments and met with two doctors.

The initial reaction of each doctor was not as positive as you would hope, stating that "this is a rare type of cancer" and "You have two little girls, we can try to keep you around as much as we can." One blessing was a recommendation from the 2nd opinion to have a Molecular Profiling Report done by The Clearity Foundation. We opted for it.

Two months later the report came in with some very interesting findings. 95% of her cancer cells have an over expressed HER2 protein that is typically found in Breast Cancer. The #1 drug that works wonders with this specific finding is Herceptin. With all of the data collected, I found 19 clinical trials supporting the use of this drug (specificially with Ovarian Cancer) in combination with other chemotherapies with a positive outcome. With enough pushing, the doctors finally looked at it, and after a couple weeks, they decided to take this new approach and prescribe Herceptin, because my wife's cancer is so unique. One last hurdle remains, Insurance. The only trouble is that insurance denies the use of this drug for Ovarian Cancer because there is no basis to use it on Ovarian Cancer according to their database and history.

So this is where we are, either taking the "wait and see" approach or going to battle fully loaded with the drug that could destroy this cancer. Herceptin costs several thousands of dollars per month if not approved by insurance, I am willing to go bankrupt for the rest of my life just to know that the love of my life, my soul mate, the incredible mother of our two daughters would remain healthy and live a long happy life.