NED is a sweet sound to Berlin woman

NED is a sweet sound to Berlin woman
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Ashadee Miller with her husband Morgan and children Darius and Daniella have been able to rejoice that after a lengthy battle with breast cancer, long hours of some unusual therapy, plenty of prayer and many challenges, she is cancer free.

                        

Being called NED could not sound sweeter to Ashadee Miller.

After years of battling breast cancer, all kinds of treatments, and plenty of support and prayer, Miller was recently given the NED moniker, meaning there is "no evidence detected."

The Berlin resident walked through a more than two-year ordeal of fire and pain, and through faith and modern science, she walked out the other side knowing she had been part of a miracle.

“Because my type of cancer is so aggressive, they don’t call it cancer-free, but they call it NED,” Miller said. “That sounds awfully good to me.”

Miller’s ordeal began in 2018, and in 2019 she went to Mexico with hopes a unique and aggressive method would remove her cancer. A lot of detoxing made her very sick and weak, and therapy to boost her body helped her fight the cancer cells and gain strength.

Every three months over the past two years, she has returned to Mexico for check-ups, which went well.

Then came the time to do her breast reconstruction, in which doctors take out the breast expanders she had and put in permanent implants, and Miller had high hopes that her ordeal was approaching an end.

It turned out she was far from it. She began experiencing some terrible pain, which led to other surgeries. What they soon found was almost as horrifying as the initial diagnosis.

“Four days after my final surgery, I found out that the implants were being recalled for causing a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” Miller said. “I was devastated. They admitted that they even knew that type of implant they put in me was actually the worst kind possible, but the doctor said it was the only kind possible. Why would they do that?”

Some research on their own led them to realize it was not the only option.

The specific implant was a textured implant, meaning it had a roughage on the outside of it, designed to help keep the breast implant in place. Because of that, it created friction and caused inflammation that then turned into cancer, so the race was now on to remove her implants.

The Millers continued to research their option and eventually found Dr. Bing at the Cleveland Clinic. Bing was booked out through this August but agreed to take on Miller.

“She said I was so sick I didn’t even realize how sick I was,” Miller said. “I had inflammation on my brain, and she said these implants were literally killing me. They ended up getting me in to work on me in three weeks.”

That in itself was a miracle because Miller said normally people have to wait close to one year to get in to see Bing.

As if all of this wasn’t enough, as her surgery approached, Miller got the flu and had to have her surgery pushed back another week.

Eventually, they did the surgery on Jan. 7, her sixth surgery in less than two years.

The surgery was a success, and her implants were removed. While she is now what she calls “going flat,” something she was very concerned about, she has no qualms of remaining that way for the time being, especially since she is now pain-free.

On Monday, April 20 Miller finally heard the words she and her family had wanted to hear for so long.

“My doctor was going over my notes, and it was usually going over my body piece by piece, and at the end it was always, ‘The area of concerns are … ’” Miller said.

This time she looked at the paper, then looked again.

“The areas of concern are none?” Miller asked her doctor. “She said, 'Ash, the areas of concern are none.’ I could not even express my overwhelming shock and gratefulness to my doctors and to God. I tell people the initial thing you will feel when you hear that is just exuberant joy. For me, I felt total peace, an unexplainable peace. It was the same sense of peace that I found when I was lying on the floor, bald and in pain, and let God just blanket me in this peace. Because of the length of the fight, my first sense was in shock and awe of God and of everything. It was so unexpected, just like the day I was diagnosed. It was almost like my heart and my mind couldn’t catch up to what I was feeling.”

Her treatments in Mexico continue, something she knows is helping her heal. The lone potential surgery left to consider is to remove some excess breast tissue, but that is down the road. Right now she and her family are rejoicing in her being cancer-free for the first time in what seemed like forever.

What she said she wants people to know on behalf of herself and all survivors is that the trek is not a solo one.

“Survivorship comes with a lot of residual treatments, dealing with trauma and adjustments, so it is ongoing and we need to extend grace and compassion for a long time afterwards. Survivorship can be just as hard as dealing with cancer,” Miller said.

She experienced that very thing this past Easter when family, friends and even people who didn’t know her drove by their home in Berlin, where a surprise celebration of being NED took place, complete with encouragement, music and prayer.

The support has been instrumental in her recovery.

“No one can fight cancer alone,” Miller said. “My husband has been an incredible caregiver. My children saved my life on days I didn’t want to get out of bed.”

In addition, prayer also has been a critical part of the recovery process. Miller’s mom and dad, who is an evangelist, contacted people all over the United States and in 14 different countries. She said she felt those prayers coming from all four corners of the globe.

“My community here, people from far away, it is beyond incredible,” Miller said, noting she received more than 5,000 messages on her Facebook page when the celebration of being NED was shared.

“It was crazy to me to see so many people invested in praying for my journey,” Miller said. “I know not everyone has that, and I am so incredibly grateful.”

After such an inspiring and miraculous journey, Miller said she will never take a single day of life, a normal day spent with her family and friends, for granted.


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