My name is Alix Kendall and I work at Fox nine. I've been there for 24 years now, hosting the morning show, anchoring the news, and then also a show called Good Day. When I heard about Metaiver and I was asked to MC about five years ago now, I said I'm in. I have three sisters who have had breast cancer. My older sister Sheri, had metastatic breast cancer and she was pregnant at the time, and that hit our family like a bomb. We were very close. I guess this is more difficult than I thought to talk about. I haven't talked about it that much. She went through the chemotherapy and then we thought it's in the past. She's beat cancer, and we all sort of took a breath. And then it came back like a vengeance. Her passing happened so fast when John called me and said that I needed to come to the hospital, I didn't recognize my sister. I rushed there and I got there before she died in the same room as her little daughter toggling around, and it was just surreal. Christiana was able to kind of take our attention off of what was happening with my sister, her beautiful sweet little smile and those big blue eyes. The fact that we had this little beautiful sweet baby to focus on during this awful period of time for her helped all of us. My name is Christiana and I'm here today to talk about my mom, Sheri, who passed away when I was a baby. I was very confused as a kid because I have an older sister who's about 17 years, my senior, so I think a lot of times I thought maybe she was my mother. The time came to explain to me like, Hey, she's not your mom. Your mom is not here anymore. Michelle was in high school. She just basically stepped in and really became Christiana's mother, truly. Who was this person that was a huge part of my life that's not here anymore. What was she like? What did she sound like? What did she like to do? Many years went by and another sister, Angie. About five years ago I got breast cancer. I'm Angie and I am Alix's younger sister also Sherry's younger sister and Mandy's older sister, and I had a breast cancer diagnosis in 2018. And I'm Mandy, I'm also Sheri and Alix's younger sister and Angie's younger sister, so I'm the youngest of all the siblings and I had breast cancer in 2020. I went for my regular mammogram and they found something. They did do a needle biopsy, and then it was confirmed that it was cancer. In the beginning it was a little overwhelming with having lots of decisions to make about what kind of treatment. I opted to do a double mastectomy because I just didn't really want to worry about it. So it was a crazy couple of years just getting through the surgeries, getting to the point where I felt put back together. Then 2020 was going to be my year, man. That was going to be the greatest year. Then it was all over, and then Mandy got her diagnosis later that year too in 2020, so it just kept going. When I heard the news that it didn't seem terrible at the time, it seemed like this was very treatable. The plan was probably just to do a lumpectomy, no big deal. But then when they did the lumpectomy, they found a second tumor. That was not what they were expecting. This one was a large concern to be kind of a super spreader in your body. We scheduled chemotherapy right away because the concern was that this type of triple-negative cancer is the type that spreads quickly. I think it's brought us closer together as a family. When Sheri was into anything, she went in full bore. She was like a hundred percent in whether it was music or whatever she was doing or dancing. I mean, she loved dancing and she was a force in her family. I love learning that. My mom was a dancer. She studied dance as a teenager. I wish I could have seen her dance because I hear she was really great. It's one of my favorite things. I feel like she would be happy. I think she'd be happy that we were all together and that I'm kind of learning about her and maybe just her essence is around me that I get to have some of her still here. I try to tell everybody I know about Metavivor. There isn't enough research and enough time and money devoted to learning about stage four and how we can reverse that and end stage four If Metavivor can continue to do the research so more families can stay together and not have to go through a loss of a sister. It impacts your family every moment, every day, because every Christmas, every birthday, every holiday. You think what it would be like if she was still here and what Christiana would be like if she had Her mom stage four needs more attention. It absolutely does, and so I will be out there talking about it to anyone. I wish that she were here today to see her daughter Christiana, who has lived without a mother essentially her whole life, and I can't imagine what that feels like for her. I don't want there to be another Christiana out there who loses their mother.
