Local resident asks for community's help to remain cancer free

Twenty-nine-year-olds are generally focusing on their careers or budding families or enjoying life after college, but, one local resident, instead, is fighting to remain cancer free and has a fundraiser to let people help her do so.

Sarah Gone, a member of the Fort Belknap Indian Community, was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer April 4.

Triple-negative breast cancer is diagnosed when a breast cancer screening comes back negative for both hormonal receptors - specifically for estrogen and progesterone - and HER2 receptors according to http://www.breastcancer.org.

Since there is a lack of hormones, standard hormonal therapy will not work, the site continues. Chemotherapy and radiation are the most effective ways at stopping this form of cancer.

"In addition, triple-negative breast cancer tends to be more aggressive than other types of breast cancer," the site states.

Gone received a phone call from the nurse that April day and the nurse asked her to come in.

"I told her, 'No, just tell me the results,'" Gone said. "The nurse told me she couldn't go over that information with me and I told her to have the doctor call me back because I wasn't going to drive up there to have them tell me what I already knew."

Gone said she felt like this wasn't happening to her.

"I had a little bit of a break down and then I went in to survival mode and got my appointments scheduled," she added.

Since triple-negative breast cancer is so aggressive, Gone said, she had to take action immediately. She said she adopted a "survivors mentality."

Gone worked with a doctor at Benefis Hospital in Great Falls who oversaw her chemotherapy treatments. She said the doctor was very stoic but she always tried to make him laugh.

"I got him a couple of times," she added.

Gone began with four treatments every two weeks and then she started weekly treatments with a milder form of chemotherapy. She said her doctor also found a new, more effective treatment - carboplatin - that he administered along with the milder form of chemo.

"My final treatment, my body started wearing down and my blood counts were really low and everything," she added. "He took the carboplatin away for my 12th infusion."

As Gone moved further and further along in her treatment cycle, it became harder for her to make it to work. She said she was in miserable pain and, some days, she couldn't get out of bed.

Gone added that her employet has been accommodating with her medical appointments and have let her work from home.

"I actually didn't have enough leave to take for this last surgery I just had," she added. "So, my co-workers donated some leave to make up the difference."

Gone is now cancer free and in remission.

The plastic surgeon in Great Falls, where Gone was receiving treatment, referred her to another specialist in Washington state.

She said she has to travel to the University of Washington in Seattle for reconstruction surgery.

"I'm going to get a tissue reconstruction," Gone added. "Which is not implants. They're going to take tissue from my body and place it in my chest. I'm kind of excited about that option because then I won't have to worry about rejection or anything like."

Once the initial surgery is complete, Gone said she has to still go back to the Great Falls plastic surgeon for two more follow-up surgeries.

Gone has set up a fundraiser through Pizza Hut Thursday and all funds will go toward paying for travel and for medical bills. When people making a purchase at the Havre restaurant Thursday for dine-in or carry-out say they are donating to Gone, 20 percent of the purchase price will go to her fundraiser.

She said her family and friends have been supportive throughout her treatments. Her mother has taken her to most of her treatments and her friends have alternated driving her in as well.

"I'm a fighter," Gone said. "I adopted a survivor mentality."