Local organizations rally around young mother in final cancer battle
DEXTER, Mo. (KBSI) – A young mom’s cancer journey and a town pulling together to help, one family is leaning on community during the hardest time of their lives.
Can you imagine going to the doctor to find out why you’re in pain, only to find out that you have a year or less to live.
That nightmare is a reality for a dexter mom.
“It’s a feeling like none other because you don’t know if you’re going to wake up. You don’t know if your kids are going to see you. You know, you never know when the last day is” says Green.
Sierra Green is a young mom of 4 children a wife, and a former nursing student who was just diagnosed with cancer….for the third time her life. She shares she was diagnosed with soft tissue cancer at age 15 resulting in 52 rounds of chemo, then breast cancer just last year, in which she responded well to chemotherapy and had a double mastectomy, and just when she thought it was over… she beat her battle with cancer…. Sierra began having severe back pain that led her back to the doctor.
“I had a PET scan done, and the PET scan lit up just like cancer would right up. So, it had all of the tumor markers that cancer does with the dye that they put in and so they come back and they’re like, okay, it is cancer at stage four” says Green.
Sierra says this time was different, the doctors tell her this kind of cancer doesn’t respond well to chemotherapy and gave her an estimated time frame of one year to live. Now Sierra says she just wants to take in every moment she has left making memories with her children.
“My kids are so young, and we haven’t really got to experience life with them yet, I’m so sad, I would say that I’m taking in moments more than I did before, really getting to enjoy the time. I feel like I kind of took my time for granted because I just, you know, I thought I’d be fine, at least until they were maybe 20. I don’t know, I break down on a whim because I’m just so sad. I don’t know if tomorrow is going to come for me” says Green.
Green is a mom to an 8-year-old daughter, and three boys ages 7, 5 and 3, she says they have already began planning several trips.
“I’m going to homeschool them, you know, for the remainder of the year and we want to go explore. We want to see the world. My husband said that he didn’t want to see the world without me. So, we want to go to Wyoming because I’ve always wanted to own a ranch. It’s been a dream of mine and we want to go to Disneyland, which we got finally got to book our Disney trip and then I want to go to California, and I want to see the great sequoia trees” says Green.
Multiple organizations around the Dexter area have setup fundraisers along with a go fund me to help Sierra see what she can of the world with her family.
Rylee Taylor works at the Beauty Room in Dexter; she’s running spray tan specials to help raise funds.
“I have been close to Sierra for almost a year now, and with her past surgeries, I’ve been with her, like through all the struggles and everything and it really just breaks my heart and I love her, her kids are so sweet, and I really just want them to be able to live out whatever dreams they need to” says Taylor.
Green shares if there’s anything she wants people to take away from her story it’s this….
“Don’t take your time for granted. Don’t do it. Spend as much time as you can. Never complain, get up and enjoy the day, no matter what the day has brought you because you just never know” says Green.
Upcoming fundraisers:
Confectionately Yours by Mellie– March 27
Peking, Dexter, Peking Chinese Restaurant, LLC, 1622 W Business US – April 6-8
Brianna Magee Photography April 18
Spaghetti Dinner and Auction April 20, 4-8pm, held at the Sikeston Clinton building, 501 Campanella Dr, Sikeston, MO 63801
Rylee Taylor at the Beauty Room– spray tans until the end of March.
Go fund me account: Fundraiser for Sierra Green by Mandalynn Wells : Support Sierra’s Final Adventures with Her Kids
