ORONO, Minn. — The three words "You have cancer" are life-changing.
"It was devastating," said Kirsten Coder, a Twin Cities mom of two. "It was like my world just fell out from under me."
Kirsten Coder's mom was the first in their family to have breast cancer.
"They got her right into chemo like essentially like after finding out she had cancer cause it was very aggressive and it worked and um we're really thankful for that and she had the full meal deal," Coder shared. "We call it the double mastectomy of chemo and radiation and she's still here today and cancer-free."
Her mom was cancer-free, but little did Kirsten know her own battle with cancer was about to begin.
"I started screening, they wanted me to at 10 years before my mom's diagnosis and that put me at 39 and I'd had a, a lump for a number of years that was bothering me," Coder said.
Despite so many unknowns coming with a breast cancer diagnosis, the hardest part for Kirsten was telling her daughters.
"My girls knew something was wrong because I just told them I had something that was hurting me that I just needed to get figured out what it was, and my girls knew before I even told them that it was something," Coder said.
"I said, 'This is big guys' and before I even said the words, they said, 'Mom, God's gotten us through some pretty hard things already in our life and we know God's gonna get us through this too.' I knew right then that we were gonna be ok."
Kirsten was thankful she was in the early stages, soon undergoing a bilateral mastectomy, chemo and radiation. She says finding a support system and not being afraid to ask for help from organizations like Hope Chest for Breast Cancer made a huge difference.
"I first learned of Hope Chest in around 2009 when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer," said Coder. "She said did you know there's a store you can go shop and the proceeds go towards helping women with breast cancer and I thought, let's check it out."
A percentage of every item sold at the resale store in Orono goes towards helping families like Kirsten's in the breast cancer community.
"We help with rent, mortgage groceries, auto-related expenses, daycare and we are seeing more unique needs come through for the patients," said Hope Chest Executive Director Maureen Scallen Failor.
Failor says Hope Chest has been doing incredible things since its inception in 2001. To date, they have shared over $2.9 million in patient grants, which has served over 6,000 patients.
"It was like kind of a surprise after surprise along the way and I'm self-employed and I don't have sick time," said Coder. "I had to take time off work to recover from these things and take care of my kids too. That's why I'm so thankful for hope chest."