The bill for just one round of chemotherapy was about $20,000.

After that, Melissa Wingert stopped looking at the dollar signs.

“It was stressing me out,” she said.

And stress is the last thing Wingert needs.

In the past year, the 28-year-old Lecompton resident has been diagnosed with two types of cancer, survived a mastectomy and weeks of chemotherapy, and had bones, teeth and an eye socket removed from her face.

A series of cancer-fighting shots was $3,000, and a mouth prosthesis to replace teeth and bones will run about $2,000. And although insurance is covering many of the costs, it won’t cover them all.

Wingert and her husband, Kent, who works at Huxtable & Associates, have two sons, 6-year-old Blake and 3-year-old Colton. She said the costs of her illness were overwhelming.

To help, Wingert’s friends and former co-workers have planned a benefit for 7:30 a.m. Sunday on the bicycle path near Southwind Theaters.

Melissa Wingert of Lecompton reads with her sons, Colton, 3, left, and Blake, 6, before bedtime. Wingert, 28, who last year was diagnosed with two types of cancer, has a good prognosis but her medical bills are beginning to add up. A benefit run and walk are planned Sunday in an effort to raise money for her treatments.

Dubbed “The Great Pumpkin Pursuit,” the fund-raiser will include 10- and 5-kilometer runs, which cost $23 to enter, as well as a 1-mile fun run/walk, which costs $15.

Organizers hope to draw at least 200 runners, said Mike Chapman, clinic director at TherapyWorks, where Wingert was employed.

Almost a year ago, the week after last Thanksgiving, doctors discovered osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer, in Wingert’s face. The diagnosis was strange, not only considering her age but also because such cancer is usually found in long, straight bones.

But circumstances got even more bizarre and horrifying: The next day a cancerous lump was found in her breast, and in recent months the cancer has migrated to her liver.

Yet even in those first few days, Wingert said, she remained optimistic.

“The only thing I was, was PO’ed,” she said. “I was like, you can’t let me have two kids and then turn around and say I’m done.”

So she worked with doctors at Lawrence Memorial Hospital and went to a cancer specialist in New York. She started rigorous treatments that led to hair loss, fatigue and mouth blisters. And she let her mom become a baby-sitter, meal-maker and caretaker.

The work seems to be paying off. Wingert has about three reconstructive surgeries left and seven months of chemotherapy, and the pockets of cancer in her body seem to be shrinking. A recent CAT scan showed the spots on her liver were gone.

“We’re kind of thinking maybe we’ve gotten ahold of it and maybe we’re getting rid of it,” she said.

Wingert’s family has rebounded. Her husband has adjusted, and her two boys have gotten past the fear of seeing their mom sick. She hopes to return to her job at TherapyWorks in March or April.

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