Our Chief Medical Officer, Kristin Batla, has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Specifically, Infiltrating Ductal Carcinoma. She is Her2 positive, and ER and PR negative. Her2 positivity is considered very aggressive and fast growing. She has been staged at Stage 4, due to metastases into distant lymph nodes, pelvic bone and spine.

Though this short journey that we’ve been on (Kristin discovered two lumps in her breast on self examination in August) has been incredibly scary, we’re full of hope and optimism. Over the past two decades, miraculous immunotherapy and chemotherapy drugs have been developed specifically to target these Her2 receptors. For a large percentage of patients, these drugs shrink the tumors and can kill off distant metastases. In that event, her staging can be downgraded, and surgery will be back on the table, follow by continued immunotherapy. Radiation therapy will likely also be employed.

Of anyone I know for cancer to pick a fight with, it has met its match with Kristin. My wife is one of the strongest people I know. Eternally optimistic, yet realistic and determined. This is a woman who is an Ironman 140.6 mi finisher, 24 hour 100 mi ultra marathon finisher, has run so many full marathons (30+?) that she’s lost count, and has birthed and raised 4 children all while working a full-time job, completing a doctorate, and starting this company.

Our plan is multi-fold: Conventional medical approach, combined with natural approaches (we’re now fully plant based and doing some other things), and of course the spiritual approach through much prayer!

We also have incredible support. It’s amazing to see how family and friends have been supporting us with their love, care packages, flowers, babysitting, offers of babysitting, messages of support, meals, prayers, encouragement from dear friends who have already gone through or are currently going through this, and so much more. Truly the people you think you can count on have shown up in force. It takes a village, and we have an amazing community surrounding us to help us through this.

We’re also blessed to have world class medical care at the Loma Linda University Health Cancer Center, and she’s in great hands with her oncologists. We also have amazing friends who we are running everything through for second opinions (an oncologist for Mayo Clinic, a surgeon for the US Navy, a surgical oncologist in LA, for example). They say that Kristin’s treatment plan is sound….and that LLUH is “throwing the book” at her.

The irony that we run a cancer detection company, and yet my wife has cancer, is not lost on us. The truth is, we weren’t following our own medicine. We have tools that can detect many types of cancers (Ultrasound Cancer Screening, Galleri Multicancer Blood Test, etc), and yet we weren’t utilizing those tools ourselves. Kristin is 37, and mammograms aren’t even indicated until 40. We just didn’t consider ourselves “at risk,” in contrast to the first responder populations that we serve. This has been a hard way to learn our lesson….which is that we will be going through our full assessment, every year, including the ultrasound screening and advanced cancer blood testing. We encourage you to do so as well.

If you’d like to “participate” in this journey with us, we are conducting a T-Shirt fundraiser in support of the Loma Linda University Cancer Center, as well as showing our love and support for Kristin by wearing the #teamkristin shirts in her favorite color. Details for that are here: Team Kristin Shirts

We have put a few Do’s and Don’ts into place for our Friends/Family/and Clients:

* Please DO pray for her.

* Please DO send your messages of support (comments, texts, DMs, emails).

* Please DO NOT start a GoFundMe page.

* Please DO NOT send unsolicited advice. We’re confident in the plan, and we’re going to stick to it unless it’s not working according to the plan….then we’ll re-evaluate.

Thank you all so much for your love, support and prayers as we being this journey together!

Love,

Greg Batla - Kristin’s Husband and CEO at On Duty Health

#teamkristin #cancersucks