Correspondent photo / Melissa Channell Jodi DeSimone was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer in 2020 — “a death sentence,” she thought. Now she tries to make the most of each day God has given her.

In her home, with her dog Joey nearby, Jodi Sylvester DeSimone shared a story of profound challenge — a breast cancer journey that unfolded alongside her husband’s own battle with cancer.

Her journey began in November 2019 with a persistent pain under her arm. “I called my regular doctor, my PCP, and he said he couldn’t take me because he was booked,” she recalled. An Urgent Care doctor suspected an infection and prescribed an antibiotic. “He gave me an antibiotic and it went away,” she said.

But by June 2020, the feeling that something was wrong returned. A different Urgent Care doctor ordered a chest X-ray and a CT scan, noting something was wrong with a lymph node. Still, there was no diagnosis. A subsequent mammogram at Tiffany Breast Care Center also came back clear. It wasn’t until her primary care physician ordered an MRI that the cause was finally revealed.

During this period of uncertainty, her husband was fighting esophageal cancer, diagnosed in 2018. The moment Jodi’s diagnosis was confirmed is etched in her memory.

“I remember it was Aug. 6, 2020, and my husband and I were going out for our anniversary,” she shared. “We were going out to eat and I got a phone call, and they said, ‘we’re almost positive it’s breast cancer.’ How do you have a good time after that?”

A biopsy confirmed the news. Her local doctor recommended a mastectomy, but Jodi wanted a second opinion. With her husband already being treated at the Cleveland Clinic, she decided to go there as well.

In September 2020, a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic delivered the news. “She told me, ‘I have good news and I have bad news,'” Jodi said. The good news was that surgery was unnecessary. “The bad news is it’s Stage IV Metastatic breast cancer… and you have it everywhere.”

The diagnosis was Stage IV Metastatic ER/PR positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. It had spread to her neck, chest and lymph nodes on both sides of her breasts. “I said, ‘Wow! Stage IV! That’s like a death sentence.’ I was just shocked.”

Though there was no cure, there was a treatment plan: a daily regimen of Ibrance and Letrozole, monitored by blood tests and PET scans every few months. “I was 60 when I found out,” Jodi said. The day after receiving her diagnosis and treatment plan, she went right back to her job at the New Castle school district.

Her resilience was soon tested further. In 2021, the same year she retired, her husband passed away. Not wanting to stay idle with the future they had planned now gone, she returned to work as a tutor and now works as a Title I teacher at Holy Family in Poland.

What keeps her going? “God keeps me going,” she stated frankly. “I have a new saying now: ‘God’s got me,’ and that’s from Isaiah 40:10.” She and her husband had created a Facebook page called ‘Faith Over Fear,’ which she now maintains as a source of inspiration. “I feel like a walking miracle, I really do! And I feel like He got me this far because He wants me to help other people.”

This drive to help others became her primary way of coping. She has donated jewelry from her Paparazzi business to cancer patients at Yellow Brick Place and frontline workers at Mercy Health. She’s organized online fundraisers and contributed to toy drives for the oncology unit at a children’s hospital. This focus on service also helped her through caring for her 95-year-old mother and recovering from two ankle surgeries after a bad fall last year.

Despite the challenges, she is always pushing forward. She is now walking daily, determined to participate in an upcoming 5k race for her friend Brian Chrobak, who is fighting the same type of cancer she has.

Her experience has fundamentally changed her outlook on life.

“Every day I try to do something I love because you don’t get a second chance for that day,” Jodi reflected. “You have to try to make the most of that day, and that’s what I try to do. I look at life totally different than before I got sick. You never take a day for granted. People get mad at little silly things and I think, ‘that’s nothing.'”

In the face of a life-altering diagnosis and profound loss, Jodi DeSimone found her strength not just in fighting for her own life, but in brightening the lives of others.