![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Casey-Story-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/a>Andrews<\/p><\/div>\n
Now 23, cancer-free and back in the classroom, Andrews\u2019 life in that moment was thrown into immediate turmoil.<\/p>\n
She was engaged and planning their wedding. And her finals were only weeks away.<\/p>\n
But even in the darkness, there was a glimmer of light and hope.<\/p>\n
They caught her cancer early \u2013 her doctor estimated the tumor had been growing for about a month \u2014 and that type of cancer is also quite treatable with chemotherapy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a huge blessing to us,\u201d Andrews said. \u201cIt\u2019s deadly but it responds very well to chemotherapy. So, it\u2019s like, \u2018OK, let\u2019s get it done.\u2019 My doctor said he wanted me to have three to four rounds of chemotherapy. He also told me, \u2018I want you to get back to school and be a nurse.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Her faculty mentors at The University of Toledo were there to offer support through it all.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey told me, \u2018Take all the time you need. You will always have a seat in the nursing program if you ever decide to come back,\u2019\u201d Andrews said. \u201cThat was huge to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrews was supposed to have three treatments, but she completed her fourth and final round that April. She described the treatments as \u201cthe worst thing I ever had to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was horrible. I couldn\u2019t walk upstairs, I was so weak, and my mom had to bathe me,\u201d she said. \u201cThe chemotherapy destroys the cancer, but it also destroys everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
To help get through it, she kept her mind focused on other things, such as returning to school and continuing to plan her wedding.<\/p>\n
But even as her body physically recovered from the treatments, her mind proved much slower to spring back to normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoctors talk about \u2018chemo brain,\u2019 and it\u2019s a 100% real thing. My brain just wasn\u2019t functioning at a high level. I could not remember anything. My fiance \u2014 now husband \u2014 had to write everything down for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took two years for me to feel like my brain was operating like it used to,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s when it clicked that I need to go back to school and that I felt truly ready to go back.\u201d<\/p>\n