POLAND — For 20 years, nurse practitioner Becky Topham has been the one tending to patients in need.
Now, the 44-year-old mother of two from Poland finds herself on the other side of the hospital bed, facing a diagnosis so rare that only 300 people are affected each year.
Topham is battling Extramammary Paget’s Disease (EMPD), an aggressive form of skin cancer that often goes misdiagnosed in its early stages. What she thought was a mild but nagging skin issue eventually led to a biopsy, and in May, doctors confirmed the diagnosis.
Nurse practitioner Becky Topham of Poland is battling Extramammary Paget’s Disease, a rare and aggressive form of skin cancer affecting only about 300 people in the U.S. each year.
“They said, ‘I really don’t want you Googling this,’” Topham recalled. “’Because you’re going to find a lot of really bad negative statistics. Let us be the one to kind of bridge that for you.’ So I didn’t look up anything. It wasn’t until [later] that I found out how rare it was.”
Due to the cancer’s irregularity, Topham is seeking treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota — one of just two medical centers in the United States equipped to treat the disease.
Treatment is an arduous combo of dermatology, OB/GYN, and plastic surgery procedures. Topham will undergo Mohs surgery, a painstaking process where surgeons remove skin layer by layer until a clear non-cancerous margin is reached.
She’ll spend at least a week hospitalized in Minnesota, followed by many weeks in recovery in a forced lying-down position — a challenge for a busy mom constantly on the go. She also faces the possibility of a temporary colostomy, with additional surgery for reversal, and ongoing monitoring every three months to five years.
Her husband, Andrew, a retired Army veteran, is stepping in to care for Becky and their two sons, ages 12 and 8. While insurance covers much of the medical work, the out-of-pocket expenses are exorbitant. The family expects to face between $50,000 and $100,000 in costs as they trek back and forth to Minnesota.
“Just four days of consults and biopsies at Mayo was more than $30,000,” Andrew said. “We quickly realized this could wipe us out. That’s when we decided to ask for help.”
Through the fundraising site AngeLink, friends, neighbors, and even strangers have contributed close to $12,000 so far. Andrew says the generosity has been overwhelming, and the couple plans to give back anything unused to EMPD research.
Though the road ahead is a challenging one, the family is focused on hope. Becky continues to punch the clock at Bassett Healthcare whenever she’s able, because she doesn’t have a pause button.
“I don’t want people to feel sorry for me,” she said. “I want them to embrace me, send a note, say a prayer. I’ve already decided this is going to be radically successful.”