Today, we are working with Novartis,
and November is National Family Caregivers Month.
We wanted to tell the story of an unbelievable woman
named Terlisa and her two beautiful daughters.
Take a look.
I'm Terlisa Sheppard.
I'm from Orlando, Florida
and a mother of two amazing, young ladies.
Alexis is my oldest daughter.
She's 23 now and Alyah's actually 21.
At one point, I didn't think I would see my daughters
grow up to even enter into elementary school, and now,
they're about to be college graduate
with a bachelor's degree and a master's degree.
21 years ago when I got my original stage 3 diagnosis,
I was eight and half months pregnant,
pretty much changed my life forever.
The nausea, the losing weight,
I went through all of those phases
while raising a new born and a two year old.
In 2001, I'm back at work at this point,
had gone through all of my treatments,
was going on with my life
but I started having some back pains
and my oncologist had me to come in
and wanted to check it out further.
And she held my hands with pretty much tears in her eyes,
and said, "Terlisa, you have metastatic breast cancer.
"I'm gonna need you to go home, quit work,
"and get your life in order."
They are so young and even though I'm so sick,
they need to see the most positive me that I can give them.
And believe it or not, my daughters have been helping me
through this journey from day one,
giving me that added strength
that I needed to get through this.
We really enjoy spending time with our mom
and hanging out with her.
We would just be there for her, like, when she needed us,
bringing her her medications,
and being there for each other.
Going through all that I've gone through,
I am happy most of all to be here
and to celebrate milestones with my daughters,
but I'm also happy to be here
as a beacon of hope for others.
I've been inspired to just dive in head first
and support other breast cancer organizations.
Working with METAvivor
and Metastatic Breast Cancer Network has been amazing.
I'm even an ambassador for the Kiss This 4 the MBC campaign.
You know, she's just still, like, the most positive soul.
The attitude that she has is amazing so she's everything.
I love her.
I am so proud of my daughters
and now they're my caregivers.
They're truly my everything.
Terlisa's here with her beautiful daughters.
This is Alexis and that's Alyah,
and I love so much about that piece,
but what I think I love about it the most
is how filled with hope that story is.
Absolutely. And Terlisa,
can we just start with you?
Your message to other women has to include
that having metastatic meaning that it has transferred
to other parts of your body
that you live with cancer, correct?
Yes, cancer all over that has traveled to different organs
in your body, and in my case, it has traveled to the bones,
lungs, liver, spine, abdomen and brain.
And I will be fighting this for the rest of my life.
That's why I'm so adamant about finding research.
So, Gretta... Yeah, just a, you know,
like Terlisa said.
Terlisa has metastatic breast cancer,
which is different from the type of breast cancer
that I have.
So three out of 10 women with breast cancer
will eventually develop advanced or metastatic disease,
which has no cure.
If you want to support people like Terlisa,
Kiss This 4 MBC is a campaign to increase research funding
and support for the metastatic breast cancer community.
For every public social post using #kissthis4mbc
or tagging the kissthis4mbc Instagram page
through November 30th, Novartis will donate $20
to MBC research up to $250,000.
A quarter of a million dollars!
(clapping)
We need this, we need all the research
and support we can get.
You guys, Terlisa, Alexis, Alyah, you are amazing,
you have inspired, I know, me and us, just like
to the degree we could never imagine.
And so thank you for that.
So we wanted to do something special for you.
We are sending the three of you on an epic girls weekend
to my spa, G Spa,
at the Foxwoods Resort and Casino in Connecticut.
So I know you thought you were going back to the warmth
but you're not, you're coming back,
and they're hooking you up with hotel accommodations
for three nights along with $1,000 food and beverage credit,
and a gift card to go shopping!
(cheering and clapping)
(bells chiming) (cheering and clapping)
(bells chiming)