NHL prospect Austin Roest shared a hopeful message to his girlfriend, figure skater Milly Okabe, amid her battle with stage IV cancer.
“Happy birthday to my other half,” Roest, 22, wrote via his Instagram Story on Wednesday, November 4. “Thank you for being the most selfless, kind, and beautiful girl there is. Whatever life throws at you, I know you will get through it because there is no one stronger than you.”
He continued, “I am lucky to have someone like you. I love you. ❤️”
In September, Okabe, 23, announced she had been diagnosed with stage IV adenocarcinoma, a type of cancer that starts in the glands that line the organs.
Okabe revealed doctors told her the cancer is “incurable” in an exclusive interview with Us later that month.
“However, I’m starting my treatment already, and I’m going to do everything I can health-wise and just keep fighting,” she said.
Okabe called the diagnosis “so unexpected” and said Roest — who was drafted by the Nashville Predators in the sixth round of the 2023 NHL Draft — was the catalyst for her getting screened.
“Austin actually plays a big role in how I found out,” she explained. “I had some flu-like symptoms, so I went to the hospital. They thought it was just the flu, so they sent me home. But Austin looked at me and said, ‘This might be something else. I want you to get looked at further.’”
Okabe “lived my life completely fine for six weeks” after initially being diagnosed with pneumonia.
“I went back for a follow-up scan, and they saw that the pneumonia hadn’t quite cleared up, so that’s when they got the ball rolling,” Okabe said. “They were like, ‘OK, let’s get a CT scan. But it’s probably nothing. It’s probably scar tissue from something else.’”
She continued, “We do the CT scan, and they found a couple of masses in my lungs and chest. That’s how we found out.”
Roest said he was “intrigued” when Okabe’s symptoms didn’t seem to line up with the flu.
“When we went to the first doctor and he said it was a flu, I knew for sure it wasn’t that,” he told Us.
A GoFundMe set up to financially assist Okabe during her cancer fight has raised over $70,000.
“I’ve just gotten so much support, it’s hard not to put a smile on my face,” Okabe said. “Austin has been so selfless and caring and amazing. When he’s off the ice, he’s always texting me like, ‘What can I do for you? Are you OK?’”
