Millbrook couple marks one year battling dual stage 4 cancers

Wendy and Kevin Wilson of Millbrook have spent the past year trying to hold on to normal life while both fight stage 4 cancer. Kevin was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer, and one week later Wendy learned her breast cancer had returned and was also stage 4. The couple has been together 18 years, has four children and is still working while treatment drives up costs.

Wendy’s cancer history reaches back further. She survived ovarian cancer and cervical cancer in 2004, then underwent a double mastectomy in 2017 before going into remission. The recurrence has forced the family back into a round of appointments, medications and planning that never really stops, even as the Wilsons try to keep their household steady for their children.

A fundraiser for the family says donations are helping cover treatment, prescriptions, travel for appointments, time off work, rent, food, utilities and emergency needs. Those are the kinds of costs that can turn a medical crisis into a financial one, especially when both spouses are trying to stay employed. The family’s youngest child is heading into the military in August, adding another milestone to a year already defined by diagnosis and uncertainty.

Wendy has also used TikTok, under the name @ourcancerbattle, to update relatives and raise awareness about what the family is facing. For families in similar circumstances, that mix of public updates and private strain is familiar: keeping friends informed, balancing work schedules around treatment, and finding enough support to manage the days between appointments. In practical terms, the fight is not only against cancer itself, but against the travel, the lost time and the constant cost of staying in care.

The Wilsons’ experience resonates in Autauga County, where cancer burden is already high. The county’s population was 58,805, and its 2013-2022 all-sites cancer incidence rate was 470.7 per 100,000, compared with 440.2 for Alabama overall. Autauga County also posted higher rates than the state in lung cancer, 64.7 per 100,000 compared with 60.8, colorectal cancer, 45.1 compared with 41.6, breast cancer, 126.3 compared with 124.7, and prostate cancer, 131.1 compared with 117.1. In a county already carrying those numbers, the Wilsons’ yearlong struggle lands close to home.