Kansas mother pregnant with twins, battling stage four cancer

When Danielle Dick first began having trouble speaking, she thought it was just a bad case of pregnancy brain. Her doctors thought the same.

“That’s what they told me – dehydration, not enough protein,” Dick, 31, of Goddard, said. “But it just got worse and worse.”

Then came the day, April 29, that she couldn’t get even three words out. Her husband rushed her to the emergency room.

Pregnancy brain was not to blame. Rather, three brain tumors jeopardized her ability to speak, her pregnancy and her life.

Doctors removed the three brain tumors and two in her abdomen. The masses were all connected to melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer.

Her misdiagnosed pregnancy brain was the start to her second fight against skin cancer. This time, she would wage that battle while carrying twins.

Dick was first diagnosed with melanoma in 2011 after her husband, Tyler Dick, noticed a mole on her back.

Her dermatologist scraped it off and said the mole was benign. But when it grew back in less than a year, she went to get a second opinion and learned it was melanoma. The mole and surrounding cells were removed.

This time she is battling metastatic, or stage four, melanoma, which means the cancer has spread to different parts of her body. At this stage, the five-year survival rate is 15 to 20 percent, according to the American Cancer Society.

Melanoma’s ability to spread is its most dangerous aspect, according to the Melanoma Research Foundation. Oftentimes symptoms do not become present until it has spread, which is what happened with Danielle Dick.

Five weeks after surgery, she had repeat scans that found another tumor had developed on her adrenal gland.

“Some doctors think maybe the pregnancy kind of sparked it to come back or to grow faster, but that’s not really confirmed – we just don’t know,” she said.

Her doctors want to immediately start full targeted therapy, a new treatment that attacks mutated cells. But the treatment would be dangerous to her unborn twins. So she waits.

Early delivery

The scariest part is the unknown, she says with tears in her eyes.

“There was a time where we didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said. “We didn’t know what was going to happen to me or the babies. The doctors didn’t know either, so that’s been the hardest part.”

The twins, whose gender will be a surprise, are due Sept. 25 but will be delivered on Wednesday so their mom can start her full targeted therapy.

Each placenta will be tested for melanoma, because in some cases the cancer can spread to babies.

“It’s scary,” she said. “Obviously I prefer to be able to carry them longer, but the doctors seem pretty confident. They’ll be in the NICU for a couple months – they might have a rough first month or so – but they seem pretty confident that they’re going to be OK, and it’s better for me to deliver early. It’s kind of the best of both worlds.”

Dick and her husband also have a 2-year-old daughter, Taylor. She says her husband and family have helped her to stay strong.

“We are taking this one day at a time,” Tyler Dick said. “She is the strongest person I know, and I have to be strong for her, too.”

Relatives have started a GoFundMe page to help pay for medical expenses. It can be found at www.gofundme.com/dani1985.

What people need to know

Danielle and Tyler Dick are hoping to share her story to spread awareness about the seriousness of skin cancer.

“We don’t want to scare people or seek attention,” he said.

Rather, they hope people will start to talk about skin cancer just as much as they talk about breast and prostate cancer.

“Getting your skin checked once a year is just as important as getting a mammogram once a year,” she said. “People think of skin cancer as really treatable and not that big of a deal. I think that before all of this, I probably was one of them – just brush it to the side, it’s no big deal, it’s totally curable and treatable. But that’s really not the case.

“Melanoma and skin cancer is just as deadly as other cancers, and I think people need to know that.”

Kaitlyn Alanis: 316-268-6290, @KaitlynAlanis

This story was originally published July 7, 2017 at 3:01 PM with the headline "Kansas mother pregnant with twins, battling stage four cancer."