Brick Mom Battles 'Weight Of A Thousand Worlds' With Multiple Cancer Diagnoses

BRICK, NJ — Felicia Willette loves to celebrate Halloween.

"It's our big favorite holiday," Willette said, referring to herself and her 11-year-old son, because it's a chance to be carefree and just have fun.

This year, however, the ability to be carefree is proving to be a significant challenge for Willette. The 34-year-old Brick Township resident, who has battled breast cancer and is undergoing treatment for lung cancer, is awaiting diagnosis on a tumor found on her spine that is causing numbness in her legs, along with other issues.

It's unusual for someone to battle multiple cancers at one time, especially someone as young as Willette. But a rare genetic disorder — Li-Fraumeni syndrome — makes her highly susceptible to a wide range of cancers, "most notably soft-tissue and bone sarcomas, breast cancer, brain tumors, adrenocortical carcinoma and leukemia," according to the LFS Association. Those with LFS also can develop "gastrointestinal cancers and cancers of the lung, kidney, thyroid, skin, prostate, and ovaries, among others," and at much younger ages, the association says.

It's a roller coaster that started in 2022 when she noticed a lump in her breast. It took months to get anyone to take her concern seriously, Willette said Monday.

"The doctors kept telling me, 'You're too young. Go back on birth control, you're just anxious,' " Willette said. They ignored the symptoms she shared with them, dismissing them as related to piercings she'd had done.

When she finally got a mammogram in August 2022, the dismissive attitude continued, Willette said.

"They kept saying the breast tissue was just dense," she said.

In early 2023 her scans finally got in the hands of Dr. Cynthia Barone at Monmouth Medical Center.

"She looked at my scans and said, 'This isn't normal. You need a biopsy,' " Willette said. Her breast cancer diagnosis was confirmed shortly afterward at the Jacqueline M. Wilentz Breast Center at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch.

That diagnosis led to the discovery that she had Li-Fraumeni syndrome, she said.

Since then, Willette has undergone a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy, and had a partial resection of her small intestine after a tumor was discovered there during her hysterectomy. While she was still recovering from the surgeries, a scan showed a spot on her lung, Willette said.

Just as with the breast cancer, the lung spot was dismissed repeatedly. When it was finally diagnosed, doctors believed it was stage 3, but surgery that showed it was stage 4, she said.

"I’ve been taking a chemo pill for the last year," Willette said.

The latest challenge started in April, Willette said, with a spot on her spine that initially was dismissed as a stress fracture. As pain and numbness in her legs increased, she pressed for answers, but ran into issues when her insurance company refused to pay for a PET scan (PET stands for Positron Emission Tomography) of the area.

The insurance company "said it (the PET scan) wasn't medically necessary," she said. So she pulled together $2,100 to pay for the scan out of pocket. She cannot have traditional X-rays because she has to limit her exposure to radiation due to the risks of developing other cancers. "I even have to stay out of the sun," she said.

"Thank God we got it done, because the spot had doubled in size," Willette said.

Because it's on her spine, it's impairing her ability to do most of the things she has been able to do in the past, including working and taking care of the home she shares with her ex.

"I was doing everything you can think of," she said. "I was just able to force myself and do it."

Now, she said, "I can't even just drive my kid to the bus stop."

Willette said she is trying to keep life as stable as possible for her son, who just started middle school and is running cross country. The district's School-Based Youth Services program has been a support, she said, something she is grateful exists.

"We didn't have this when I was here," said Willette, who attended Lanes Mill Elementary and Veterans Middle School and is a 2009 graduate of Brick Memorial High School.

Her son — he has undergone genetic screening and has not inherited Willette's disorder — has been aware of her breast cancer treatment and the surgeries, but she just told him on Friday about the most recent issues, which have included trouble swallowing and severe pain.

"I just want him to have the life he deserves," she said. "Middle school is hard and kids are mean."

Her own plans for her life have been disrupted. Willette, who is a certified nursing assistant and had become a patient care technician, had been studying to become a registered nurse when she was diagnosed with cancer.

"I wanted to be the one to change the world in the medical field," she said, so other patients don't have to fight to have their health concerns treated with belief instead of skepticism, potentially avoiding severe health issues.

While she awaits a diagnosis of whether the tumor on her spine is yet another new cancer or is a metastasis from the lung cancer, Willette said she is trying to get approval for a home health aide to assist her, because physical help is not at her fingertips.

Her parents are older and in ill health, and most of her siblings do not live nearby. The siblings who are nearby — and friends who have offered help — are busy with their lives and families, Willett said. And her son's father lives an hour away.

"My sister and mom have helped the best they can," she said. "My parents are sick and my sister Tracy has been around a lot to help the best she can too. Everyone just has their own lives and it’s a burden and it’s lot on them."

Those challenges are why she has accepted help in the form of a GoFundMe campaign her sister launched to help with the financial burden of her medical care and the costs of the mortgage and other bills.

"Usually I try to keep things to myself," she said. "This time it’s the weight of a thousand worlds on my shoulders."

In addition to the GoFundMe, the Veterans Memorial Middle School PTA has launched a meal train to help Willette. Those interested in participating in the meal train can find more information here.

"Every year for the last three years I've dealt with some kind of cancer, some kind of surgery, some kind of health issue," she said. "I don’t want to hurt anyone but I feel like I am. It’s heavy on everyone."

That's why she's hoping the news on the newest tumor will make the treatment options clear and straightforward.

"My body has been fighting so hard," she said.

"She has been screwed over terribly by our health care in this country time and time again," Willette's sister, Nicole Daskus, wrote on the GoFundMe campaign. She said she was hoping Willette could find a home health aide but added, "we don’t know if insurance will cover that, let alone these new treatments."

"She is a warrior and hasn’t given up and we can’t give up on them either," Daskus wrote. "She has so much more life to live. No one deserves this."

You can donate to the GoFundMe campaign here.