NHL prospect Austin Roest provided an update on the anniversary of his girlfriend, Milly Okabe, being diagnosed with stage IV cancer.
“1 month since your life changed,” Roest, 22, shared via Instagram on Wednesday, September 30. “Throughout all of this, you have been the most fearless person I’ve ever seen. You showed composure in moments people would never expect you to.”
He added, “You are the strongest girl mil and such an inspiration. You got this ❤️.”
Okabe, also 22, commented on the post, “Couldn’t do it without u! ❤️❤️.”
Last month, Okabe announced she had been diagnosed with stage IV adenocarcinoma, a type of cancer that starts in the glands that line the organs.
Okabe later revealed the cancer is “incurable” in an exclusive interview with Us.
“However, I’m starting my treatment already, and I’m going to do everything I can health-wise and just keep fighting,” she said on September 15.
Okabe said Roest — who was drafted by the NHL’s Nashville Predators in the sixth round of the 2023 NHL Draft — “plays a big role in how I found out.”
“I had some flu-like symptoms, so I went to the hospital,” she told Us. “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 went to “a couple of doctors who kind of said the same thing” before she was prescribed antibiotics for pneumonia and “lived my life completely fine for six weeks.”
“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 continued. “They were like, ‘OK, let’s get a CT scan. But it’s probably nothing. It’s probably scar tissue from something else.’”
The CT scan ultimately uncovered “a couple of masses in my lungs and chest.”
Roest told Us his “gut instinct” took over when Okabe got sick.
“When we went to the first doctor and he said it was a flu, I knew for sure it wasn’t that,” he recalled.
Since coming forward with her diagnosis, Okabe has received messages “from people around the world.”
“Cancer survivors have reached out and given me advice and so much hope and faith,” she said. “Everyone has been so kind.”
A GoFundMe organized to help Okabe with her treatment costs has raised nearly $70,000 at the time of publication.
