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Nurse dying of cancer gets her wish to see 'Wicked' movie
Misty Steffen is receiving end-of-life care in Palmetto. Her dying wish was to see the new "Wicked" movie. With the help of friends and family, that wish was fulfilled.
TAMPA, Fla. - Update: On Tuesday, Dec. 3, one week after the posting of this article, Misty Steffen died of blood cancer. A Tampa Bay area nurse who was diagnosed with blood cancer had one dying wish – to see the new movie "Wicked" in theaters. With the help of friends and family, that wish was fulfilled on Monday.
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Misty Steffen is a wife and mother, and she was also HCA Florida South Shore's chief of nursing.
"I've loved every day of my life being a nurse," she said. "Twenty-six years that I got to be one and serve and love and decrease anxiety and increase trust and explain."
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Three years ago, though, she felt like something was off.
"I kept feeling really tired, and I want that to be a warning sign to people," she said.
Her doctor conducted blood panel testing.
"He said, 'I think you have blood cancer'. And I said, 'what in the world. No one in my family, there's no family history of that,'" she said. "We landed on myelodysplastic syndrome with five mutations. The mutation was the most aggressive, awful was called ‘TP53.’ It's hard to fight."
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Experts report the survival rate is only 20%.
In 2022, she received a stem cell transplant but said the cells began to attack her body.
"I received every complication you could think of since then," she said. "So, the last two years have been, for lack of a better word, just crazy and uncomfortable and painful. I felt like I've fought tooth and nail to live every day."
She was admitted to Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa where she was given three choices.
"Come home on hospice, receive blood and platelets until my body can handle them, or I could go in for intensive chemo. But my chances of dying in the hospital were better than walking out," Steffen said.
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She chose 37 days of intensive chemo.
"I love my friends and family so much that the pain I had to go through was not as hard as the pain of the thought of leaving them. I love them," she said.
She walked out of treatment cancer-free. But shortly after, she experienced even more complications.
"Pneumonias infections, bacterias, crazy things like my eyes bleeding, nose bleeds," she said.
Steffen decided to return to her home in Palmetto for end-of-life care.
MORE: Nearly 200 chemicals linked to breast cancer could be exposed to people’s food: Study
"It's not what I thought would be the end of my story, but I'm at peace knowing whether I live or whether I die," she said.
Steffen said she, her daughter and her husband always sang songs from "Wicked" in the car. Together, they've seen the musical on Broadway twice. Her last wish was to see the new movie in theaters.
"The next thing I know he's [her husband] rented out the whole room in the theater," she said.
HCA Florida Brandon paramedics, where Steffen worked too, as the assistant chief of nursing, transported her in their ambulance at no charge.
"He's like we've got people who are going to come take you in an ambulance to ‘Wicked,’" she said. "I just started balling and I go...'what? Why am I so deserving of that?'"
Steffen will spend the coming days surrounded by loved ones, many of whom flew in from all over the country. She hopes to finish her book and have it published in the next two months.
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"It's called 'Running on Faith's Fumes.' Sometimes you're running on fumes, and you depend on other people to carry you and lift you up," she said, "My book is really about the power of community, the power of prayer, the power that's in friendship and family and the power of positivity."
Her message to the community: "It's the most important thing. Don't work 60 hours a week. Careers are great. Success is great. I've tasted it...Take the vacations. Spend the money. Eat the cake," she said.
Steffen has been documenting her journey on Facebook. Click here for more.
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