Audio slide show

Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

Stephanie Hiemstra gets a kiss from her husband as they are surrounded by supporters at William Byrd Middle School. Click for the slide show.

Stephanie Hiemstra, 36, will never forget 12:01 p.m. on the second day of May.

Less than six weeks earlier, she had given birth to her second son, Nathan, whom she hadn't been able to breast-feed.

A call from the doctor told the William Byrd Middle School teacher why: cancer. A large lump on the left side of her right breast.

"I was here with both boys by myself," she recalled. "I sat on the bed and cried."

It took her an hour to phone her husband, Don, a shift manager at Apple Market. He rushed back to their one-story home nestled at the end of a street in Northeast Roanoke. They held each other.

Less than two years earlier, the couple had moved here from North Dakota.

This was supposed to be a happy time for them: a new baby, a new town, new jobs. But news of the cancer left Hiemstra in shock.

There were so many unknowns she would face in the months to come: How bad was the cancer? What was the treatment? How long would she be sick? Could she still work? How would she manage an infant and toddler?

But there was another unknown Hiemstra didn't account for -- the support for her that was quietly growing in Vinton while she and her family struggled through her illness.

Changing sense of self

Hiemstra had both breasts removed in May.

Once a large-chested woman, she now jokes that the mastectomy saved money on a future breast reduction.

Her last chemotherapy session was in November. She does not yet know if she is in remission.

The full-time working mom and wife who could manage kids, a job, a husband and a household found that those treatments sapped her energy. The simplest tasks left her drained.

"Even now there are some days that just to wash a load of clothes and maybe vacuum takes all the energy out of me," she said.

Perhaps the hardest thing to deal with after the cancer treatments was what happened to her hair. Hiemstra had always felt that her short brown locks defined her.

"I still can't honestly explain the feeling," she said. "But it was more my identity."

Her hair began to fall out shortly after her first chemotherapy session. Weeks later, she had had enough. She asked her husband to shave it off. But the retired Army cook was reluctant.

"I'm not going to sit here and watch my hair come out by the handful and fistful anymore," she recalled telling him. "If you don't shave it off, I'll shave it off myself."

As Don Hiemstra shaved his wife's head, Daniel, 2, their older child, picked up the brown trimmings from the bathroom floor and placed them gently in his mother's lap.

She went back and forth on whether to wear a wig. She cried, explaining to Don Hiemstra that it was more than just hair.

Finally, Stephanie Hiemstra decided to accept herself the way she was, and demand that others accept her that way, too.

In Stephanie's shoes

The realization of Hiemstra's illness hit the middle school hallways hard when she returned after summer break in August.

She was bald.

She made the choice to tell her students upfront about the cancer.

Supportive e-mails and get-well cards poured in from students and their parents. Some were simple wishes of healing, while others thanked Hiemstra for her honesty about the disease.

Hiemstra's illness particularly affected William Byrd Middle School librarian Heather Balsley. A wife and mom, Balsley recalled trying to put herself in Hiemstra's shoes, wondering how she must feel.

"What would my husband do? How would my son react or feel?" Balsley asked as she sat in her office in early December, wiping away tears.

A little more than a month into the school year, Hiemstra's doctors told her that her job might interfere with her recovery. Early in October, she took an unpaid leave of absence.

That's when Balsley's determination to make sure Hiemstra wouldn't have to face her illness alone began to take shape. Balsley organized and led an effort at the school to make sure Stephanie wouldn't have to wear herself out cooking for her family every night.

So at least two days each week, staff members showed up at school with premade meals for the Hiemstras. They loaded the prepared food into a refrigerator in a staff lounge.

After school, Balsley delivered the meals -- chili, spaghetti, taco soup, lasagna and others -- to the Hiemstras' home.

"I realized what a hard time her and her husband were having," Balsley said. "So we started with just delivering meals"

Other staff members brought groceries or took the family out to dinner.

Hiemstra didn't know it, but the school community was planning more.

'Fear Factor' fundraiser

Enter sixth-grade English teacher Code (pronounced Cody) Sizemore and the William Byrd Middle School Character Counts Club.

Each year, the student club picks one service project to benefit the community. The club began brainstorming ideas in October.

Suggestions ranged from stuffing stockings for The Salvation Army to helping at a nursing home to adopting a family, Sizemore recalled.

The final idea won over the students' vote. But there was one stipulation: The children wanted to adopt the Hiemstras. They came up with a plan on how to help.

They would raise money for the family, modeling the effort after the former NBC reality show, "Fear Factor."

The students set up tip jars in the school cafeteria, each with a teacher's name on it. Each jar also represented some sort of funny/humiliating action or outrageous stunt that teacher would perform. In all, there were almost 20 jars.

Every lunch period, between chowing down on pizza and guzzling chocolate milk, students cast spare pennies and, in some cases, entire allowances, as votes.

One teacher volunteered to wear a tutu and dance like a ballerina.

Special ed teacher Cathy Parker is deathly afraid of snakes. She agreed to kiss the science department's boa constrictor for the cause, Sizemore said.

In just two and a half weeks, the school raised more than $2,000.

Code Sizemore's husband, history teacher Steve Sizemore, agreed to be slave to a sixth-grader. He raised the most money.

Steve Sizemore fulfilled his obligation Dec. 14 when he carried Drew Vipperman's books, took science, history and math quizzes and even bought some fast food.

"It's pretty fun," Sizemore conceded that day in the cafeteria, his legs hanging out from beneath the small lunch table. "But it's not easy being a sixth-grader."

After lunch, Sizemore headed to Drew's band class, where he was told to play the trumpet.

Sizemore brought the brass instrument to his lips as the class crowded closer. He fidgeted his hands to fit his large finger in the small pinky holder, took a deep breath and blew. His cheeks grew fat and a slab of spit snuck out from beneath the mouthpiece. He hardly produced a sound. The students giggled.

Back at the Hiemstra house, Stephanie Hiemstra had no idea any of this was happening. She was concerned with more pressing matters:

Hiemstra didn't believe Christmas would be much for her family.

She was wrong.

'How much they care'

It was Thursday morning, just five days before Christmas. Students from William Byrd Middle School sat in the drab high school auditorium before the beginning of the annual holiday concert.

Winter break was just about to begin, but the students were restless for another reason.

They had a surprise -- a special presentation.

Hiemstra was there, too. Her once bald head was now fuzzy with wisps of blond hair. She and her family took seats front and center in the auditorium. The students behind her grew quiet.

Members of the Character Counts Club sat with their legs dangling off the stage, Santa hats secure atop their heads.

"We know that the last few months have been challenging for you and your family," one student recited.

"The Character Counts Club and the entire student body and faculty of William Byrd Middle School joined together in order to help make your family's holiday a little brighter," another chimed.

The students brought a large Christmas card to Hiemstra, who was now sitting on the stage just beneath them.

They lugged two giant trash bags of wrapped presents towards her. They explained how they arranged for a catered Christmas dinner, courtesy of Kroger. There were toy and clothing gift cards for Nathan and Daniel. And a check for more than $1,000.

Hiemstra buried her head in her hands and wept.

The audience rose to its feet behind the Hiemstra family in a standing ovation.

"We knew the support was there," Stephanie Hiemstra mumbled between tears. "But for the kids to come together and do it ...."

She paused.

"I just didn't realize how much they care."

Thanks to the community at William Byrd Middle School, the family from North Dakota felt they had a new place to call home.