Coweta County rallies for nurse fighting Stage 4 breast cancer

As we have learned in Coweta County, community members are rallying around a nurse who is battling breast cancer. Her husband works in law enforcement, and this is not the only medical challenge in their family. They have a six-year-old daughter with a heart defect, and we understand that she may require a heart transplant at some point in her life. Fox 5's Doug Evans has been speaking with the community and this family as they navigate this tragedy. Doug, I just can't imagine. They are weathering so many battles right now. Yeah, it seems when one storm hits, there's another one on the horizon, and that's how it was for the Fowler family. You know, this is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and so I was contacted by a church, Providence Baptist Church in Coweta County, about one of its members, and I got to meet who they were talking about, Olivia Fowler, not Olivia Fowler, excuse me, April Fowler earlier today and we met there at the church in the fellowship hall and what a story and what a time that this family has been through. First of all, April Fowler is 41 years old and she has been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. It is her second bout with cancer. She's also an oncology nurse at Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton. So she's able to share her experiences, not just as an oncology nurse, but also as a breast cancer patient for the second time with her own patients there at Tanner Medical Center. And then she's got a six-year-old daughter, Ivy, born with a congenital heart defect. She's had three major open heart surgeries so far at just six years old. They thought that they had gotten through their medical crisis as a family with Ivy in 2025, only to learn that at that same time, that for a second time, April had come down with cancer again, this time stage four, and it was much worse than it was previously. So I did do an interview with her. Wanted to share some of that with you right now. This is about her talking with her own patients there at Tanner Medical Center on the oncology floor about her experiences and also the kind of message that she would deliver for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, both as a nurse and as a patient. They're surprised. Most people say, and you're still working? It's like, yes, because we have our everyday bills and then now we have medical bills and cancer is not cheap. It is very expensive. Our cancer or my particular chemo bag that I had, it's a small bag, but it still runs around, I believe, 15 grand per bag. So it's like you're buying a car every time you go to chemo. And give or take, every chemo is a little different but they're all expensive. I think for me just in my diagnosis and working in the medical field on the oncology field is some people don't don't as far as getting diagnosed with cancer they don't want to say anything so that's what I tell my patients any little ache or pain or anything that is off tell your doctor because I try to explain it away like oh I'm too young oh it's fine it's probably this it's probably that it's like don't explain it away because it'll get to a point where it is too late and don't let people tell you that you're foolish you know your body if something's wrong something's wrong. April Fowler about her own cancer story and that of talking and helping others on in the cancer floor there at Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton as an oncology nurse. There is a big fundraiser going on this Saturday for April and her family. It's going to be held at Unity Baptist Church, which is not the same church that we were at this morning. Unity Baptist Church is a big church in Newnan, and they're having a car show this Saturday. So if you have a car that you'd like to put in a car show, you're looking for a nice weekend, And apparently it's going to be a nice weekend, weather-wise. Look for that information. We'll have it on our webpage at fox5atlanta.com. But also you can find it in the community as well. Just look at Unity Baptist Church and this car show for April Fowler and her family. They have a Facebook page as well, Ariel, that I'm told. There's also a GoFundMe. If you go to the GoFundMe website, you can just search on April Fowler, and you'll be directed there to the GoFundMe page to support this family as well. Ariel? Doug, I really hope the community does rally around and support them. You can just hear that she is a fighter. She's really working hard through this, but it is a battle that, one, you need a big community around you, because it's just, she has this discussion with her own patients all the time, and now she's on the other side of it. I mean, my heart goes out to her. So Doug, thank you for bringing her story to our attention, and hopefully the community continues to uplift her. So Doug, thank you so much.