BEA art teacher Erin Mikels, her husband Justin, and sons Trenton, Jayson and Peyton in a family photo.

For the past three years, Blue Earth Area Schools have had a great addition to their art program, and her name is Erin Mikels. This will be Mikels’ fourth year teaching in Blue Earth and her eighth year teaching overall.

Mikels, her husband Justin, and three sons, Trenton (9), Jayson (6), and Peyton (3), live in Hollandale.

She says she has made great connections with both her students and the staff at BEA. She’s also made similar strengthening relationships at her church in Albert Lea. Those connections she has made have come in handy as of late, as Mikels’ life has had a drastic change.

On April 3, at 32 years old, Mikels was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC), an aggressive and rare type of breast cancer that developed quickly and has spread to nearby lymph nodes. She says she is being treated as stage three breast cancer.

Stage three cancer means the cancer has extended to beyond the immediate region of a tumor and may have invaded near by lymph nodes and muscles, but has not spread to distant organs.

“I found an enlarged lymph node under my right arm pit that was about three inches long and my right breast had also started growing,” shares Mikels. She is the first on both sides of her family to have breast cancer.

For the first two months of her cancer treatment, Mikels started with two drugs that she took once every other week for four rounds. The second drug is Taxol, and she is having 12 rounds once a week.

“I have five weeks left,” she shares with excitement. For Mikels, any progress at this point is good progress.

When it came to understanding her cancer when she first found out about it from her doctor, she said at first it was a roller coaster, but something changed to make things a bit more easy to swallow.

“I was surrounded by so many positive, loving people. I was able to change my mind set from ‘why me’ to ‘how can I use this to show the love I have for my beliefs,” says Mikels.

Mikels is a firm believer in the love of Jesus Christ and she says she has found a way to turn her current situation into an opportunity to share her love and her belief.

But there was another group besides her friends, family, and church family, that had to understand what she was facing. Her students.

“I told my students a few weeks after my diagnosis,” she says,?”I told them what they were to expect and how I might feel. My students had questions and wanted to make many, many cards for me.”

Mikels also said that the students were not as shocked or upset because they had seen a fellow classmate go through his cancer journey the previous year.

“So, they saw hope through him, knowing things would be okay,” says Mikels.

So, with the Blue Earth Area students and staff supporting her, her family helping her, and her church family praying for her, it seems Mikels has all of her bases covered through her cancer journey. Not quite.

Her circle of support is going one step further, by having a benefit banquet for Mikels and her family. The benefit is set for Aug. 15 from 4-8 p.m. at the Chrysler building in Albert Lea (2310 East Main St.) All of the proceeds of the benefit will be used to offset medical costs and living expenses for the Mikels family as Erin Mikels takes time away from work for a bit.

Mikels says if there was one positive message she would provide to other cancer fighters in the community, it would be this:

“Stay positive and allow others to give you help. Ask others to pray for you, and above all else, put all your faith in Jesus.”