GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Steve Morrow woke up on Feb. 8 to several missed calls from his daughter, Lauren Schwallier. He was worried something was wrong.
Schwallier has been fighting cancer and recently completed chemotherapy in Nashville, where she moved after growing up in West Michigan. The news, however, was beyond anything Morrow could have imagined.
She went to see Drake the night before and caught his eye from the crowd with a sign she was holding up. It read, “Just finished chemo” on one side and “No more chemo” on the other.
“Everyone started pushing me towards the front. Honestly, everything is a blur because it happened so fast,” Schwallier said.
After reading the sign, Drake told the crowd, “This is a true soldier right here,” and announced he would give her $100,000.
Schwallier is still in disbelief, and so is her dad.
“The generosity just completely blew me out of the water. You hear you hear about these stories, but to have it actually happen to my daughter, who needed it so badly. I really can’t explain the feeling,” said Morrow.
Schwallier first noticed a lump in her breast in January 2023. Two months later, doctors diagnosed her with cancer, specifically invasive lobular carcinoma.
“It’s one of the more rare ones and, just like stomach cancer, it’s a silent cancer. It grows in the form of a spiderweb rather than just lumping all together, so it takes longer for it to kind of accumulate and create that lump,” she said.
She had a double mastectomy and six rounds of chemotherapy, but an even bigger surgery lies ahead because of the nature of this disease. Her diagnosis also has implications for her dad.
“I could have gone forever had Lauren not discovered the breast cancer. We may have never known about this gene mutation,” he said.
Morrow carries the CDH1 gene mutation and passed it on to his daughter, something less than 1 percent of the population has. It specifically targets the breast and stomach, so Schwallier is planning to have her stomach removed next winter to prevent the cancer from recurring.
Surgeons will remove her large intestine and connect her small intestine to her esophagus.
“It’s going to change everything. I won’t be able to eat and drink the things that I love. I love food. I just learned yesterday. This is all kind of news to me,” said Schwallier. “I guess where you would normally eat like three large meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I won’t be able to do that. I’ll have to do six to seven meals a day.”
On March 5, Schwallier will go for a breast reconstruction surgery in Nashville. The same day, her dad will have a scope and biopsy of his stomach in Grand Rapids. He doesn’t yet know if he will end up having his stomach removed but hopes to have a better idea of how to proceed once the results of his procedure are in. He thinks his daughter has become a better woman from going through all of this.
“I highly recommend being vocal about your feelings and advocating for yourself, trusting your gut. You know your body the best. If you notice something different, go get it checked out,” said Schwallier.
