Woman with Kidney Cancer Celebrates Love

Sunshine, white tulle, bright roses, a beautiful cake, a delighted, teary-eyed crowd and a young woman in white waiting for her moment. It had all the makings of a picture perfect, garden wedding, but it was a day 23-year-old Melissa Coppersmith never thought she'd see, only dream of.

’It’d probably be a big, huge, fairy tale wedding just like every little girl dreams of,’ said Coppersmith.

No little girl dreams of days filled with chemotherapy and doctor's visits, but that's what her life has become after a discovery at the age of 19 -- stage 4 kidney cancer.

’A grapefruit-sized tumor,’ Coppersmith said.

Even doctors were surprised by the cancer that usually targets people in their fifties and older, but even more surprising is how the young woman chose to fight back.

"For anybody at any age to be faced with a diagnosis like this, we understand that it’s extremely nerve racking and scary. She, however, overcame that,’ said Dr. Ulka Vaishampayan, Melissa’s oncologist.

Melissa’s kidney was removed, but the aggressive cancer keeps coming back. She keeps fighting back.

"You have to have hope,’ she said. ’It is the most essential part of having cancer because if you don't have hope, what else do you have?’

She has hope and Matt.

"I come to pretty much all her appointments, 12 hour ER stays because she's not feeling good,’ said Matt LaFave, Melissa’s fiancé.

Wanting to cherish whatever lifetime is left, Matt proposed to Melissa on a Northern Michigan beach.

’It was so exciting, and everybody in his family knew who was up there. So, when we came back, everybody was like `what’d she say,’’ said Coppersmith.

As Melissa shared her news with her cancer support group, she knew her fairy tale wedding couldn't really happen. If she were to get married, Melissa would no longer be eligible for Medicaid and Medicare, which covers her daily, costly chemotherapy.

"I’ll lose pretty much all of my benefits, and that's just too much,’ Coppersmith said.

’She regretted the fact that she might never have a pretty dress, get dressed up, have a celebration,’ said Kathy Hardy with the Karmanos Cancer Institute.

A garden sits outside the chemo room at the Karmanos Cancer Center in Farmington Hills. Kathleen, Melissa's social worker, had the idea; instead of wedding, how about a celebration of love right there?

So, with her dad on her arm, Melissa stepped into the sunshine. Surrounded by love, her day arrived, and even for this tough fighter there were a few tears.

No one knows what will happen next, but on that day a little girl's dream came true.

The people at Karmanos Farmington Hills put the whole celebration together from the dress, hair and makeup to the food and the flowers.

To see more survivors fighting back, check out the "Stand Up to Cancer" special, which airs Friday at 8:00 p.m. on FOX 2.