Meet Stacy Ohligschlager, one of our 5th Annual Crawfish Boil Recipients

Meet Stacy Ohligschlager

“I have cancer, but cancer doesn’t have me.”

“I remember I had what looked like a whitehead on my nose so I picked at it and thought nothing of it. Shortly thereafter it started looking like a wart.” One trip to the dermatologist and a few tests later and turns out what Stacy Ohligschlager thought was a whitehead was a whole other beast.

“November 7, 2016, I got a call from my doctor and found out I had melanoma”

Not only was Stacy learning life changing news but turns out a PET Scan revealed that melanoma wasn’t the only cancer she would be fighting. She found out the battle has now turned 2 on 1. It was melanoma and breast cancer vs Stacy.

Stacy noted, “finding out I had melanoma saved my life. Had I not had the PET scan I wouldn’t have found out about the 2-inch tumor hiding in my breast.”

This tumor in her breast was removed as well as her lymph nodes. Stacy also received 6 other surgeries to her face to help remove the melanoma and reconstruct what was damaged.

In addition, she underwent radiation to treat the melanoma and chemo for her breast cancer. She unfortunately couldn’t undergo radiation to her breast area since she just had her surgery there.  She mentioned “Chemo was hard, you don’t want to be around people that first week of chemo I was horrible to some of the people I loved most, and I would never want to put anyone through that again.”

Stacy did still keep her loved ones very close during her whole journey. Shortly after starting treatment, Stacy started losing her hair but she kept her loved ones involved. She told her kids at her school but also got them excited about all her fun new wigs. She even let her son shave her head. She said “Drake, I need you to shave my head”. She made him a part of this journey and kept him apart of it. But it is a special moment they can and will forever share.

While getting treatment Stacy remained positive. She said “I loved it and I watched movies for 5 hours, sat in a recliner and it was great.” Similar to Stacy, our inspiration to our foundation, Jewel Levine, thought the same thing when she endured her dialysis treatments. Jewel called it “a day at the spa”.  A positive attitude during a hard time in life can truly make the biggest difference.

While going through radiation, Stacy seemed to instill that positive attitude onto others as well. She mentions “I met this lady going through radiation with me who was also going to have to do chemo. I had one of my many wigs on and this poor girl was so scared about losing her hair. So I said to her ‘sweetheart, this isn’t my hair and yours will grow back.’ She was shocked my hair was fake. I then told her ‘I’m not going to tell you what to do but hey if your lifespan will be prolonged then you may need to do what you need to do. And I have the best wig place in town I can share with you.’”

Stacy later learned this lady was a friend of a friend at the school she worked at. Stacy also later learned that she changed that lady’s life.  

Just when radiation was almost over for Stacy and the excitement was beginning, she soon learned the battle wasn’t quite over yet. Turns out her Melanoma metastasized to her neck leading her to yet another surgery to remove that and many more treatments.

Fast forward to today, about 5 and a half years from the start of the journey and it isn’t quite over yet. April 6, 2022 Stacy had a follow up and learned her cancer has spread to new places in her body.  She will be treated with radiation, medication and immunotherapy.

As Stacy goes through this journey again, she mentioned how big familiarity is to her. It is a nice thing being familiar with your doctors and your nurses. She said, “I don’t have to tell my story again it’s just you want them to recognize you and have that connection when you go once a month.”

Stacy is fortunately very familiar with The Jewel Levine Foundation and has been to events in the past but is about to get much more familiar.

We are excited to announce Stacy Ohligschlager as one of our 2022 Crawfish Boil Recipients and recognize her and make that connection of familiarity. We hope Stacy and her story inspire you and we hope to see you on April 23rd.