Nightbirde, the America’s Got Talent singer whose soulful voice and courageous cancer battle has earned her a dedicated following, has found herself a very new and very famous fan.
Selma Blair showed her love for the singer, born Jane Marczewski, after she posted a video to her social media accounts thanking her fans for all their support in the wake of her debut on AGT. “THANK YOU,” wrote Blair, who has been an inspiration for so many as she shares her ongoing battle with multiple sclerosis.
Read MoreThe singer earned a Golden Buzzer for her performance in June and then watched as the song she performed soared up the digital singles chart, eventually reaching the number three spot in less than 24 hours.
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Marczewski said that she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017, claiming in a number of interviews that she got the news in September of that year while living in Nashville with her then-husband. In the months that followed she underwent chemotherapy, a bilateral mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, procedures that were aided in part by the close to $30,000 her friends raised for her through a GoFundMe.
She was soon cancer-free and remained that way until New Year’s Eve 2019, when she says the breast cancer returned and doctors gave her just a few months to live. She was cancer-free by April.
That continued until she she posted a message in January of this year saying the cancer had returned.
“This spring, I experienced a true miracle. Hundreds of tumors died in my body, after being given 3-6 months to live. It was a whirlwind of a year, and my friends, family, and fans gave tens of thousands of dollars for a treatment that saved my life. But it turns out that my journey wasn't quite over,” wrote Nightbirde.
“Late summer after the finalization of my divorce and months after my cancer free report, I suffered a catatonic mental breakdown, and I barely spoke, ate, or moved from bed for several months. With help from the specialists here, we discovered that the events of this year had caused a physical head trauma. My brain was sending false signals of excruciating pain, and my brain's ability to process stress and emotion was functioning at just 8%.”
She continued: “With some brain wave therapy, I have made some huge strides and consider myself extremely lucky to have found the help I did. (Again, able to afford it with the money you gave!) But all of this took a tremendous toll on my body, and some of the cancer has grown back.”
Understanding Metastatic Breast Cancer
Metastatic breast cancer also called "stage four" breast cancer means that the cancer has spread, or metastasized, beyond the breasts to other parts of the body. It most commonly spreads to the bones, liver and lungs, but it may also spread to the brain or other organs, according to the American Cancer Society.
When Breast Cancer Spreads to the Bones
And while there is technically no cure for metastatic breast cancer, there is a wide variety of treatment options used to battle the disease including hormone therapy, chemotherapy, targeted drugs, immunotherapy and a combination of various treatments.
In a previous interview with SurvivorNet, Dr. Elizabeth Comen, an oncologist with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, explained how she tries to manage breast cancer when its progressed to a later stage.
"With advanced disease, the goal of treatment is to keep you as stable as possible, slow the tumor growth and improve your quality of life," she said.
Breast cancer may be the second leading cause of cancer death in women after lung cancer, but there are so many breast cancer survivors and people living with the disease today. The American Cancer Society reports that there were more than 3.8 million U.S. women with a history of breast cancer alive at the start of 2019. Some of the women were cancer-free, and others still had evidence of the disease, but they also reported that more than 150,000 breast cancer survivors were living with metastatic disease, three-fourths of whom were originally diagnosed with stage I-III. And with ongoing advancements in treatments and options out there today that can dramatically reduce systems, there are many reasons to be hopeful.
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