It Happened in Crawford County: A nurse who now shares her own recovery story

Monica (Teynor) Dyer is a daughter of Dennis and Alice (Smith) Teynor. (See their story in 2019) Monica’s siblings are: Randy, Kevin and Kathleen (Mark) Fiske. Denny owned Teynor Builders, taking it over from his father John. Alice was the deputy director of the Board of Elections. Monica went to Holy Trinity School for eight years and then to Bucyrus High focusing on basketball, photography and the yearbook. She graduated from Bucyrus High School in 1991.

Monica went on to Ohio State for three years majoring in social work. However, she didn’t get into their program due to budget cuts. They were only taking 50 out of 250 applicants. It was heartbreaking, so at that point she had to wait another year or change her major. She decided to move back home and enrolled at Marion Technical College. Later, she received an associate degree in human and social services.

Monica always wanted to help people and began working for Preparing Individuals for Careers (PIC). After that program went defunct, she began work for the Community Counseling Services as a children’s case manager. She felt she was making a difference in children’s lives who were struggling at home and school. Monica took them on canoeing trips and other fun outings, always making sure they stayed on track at school and at home and assisting with any behavioral needs. Monica still, today, has two people who reach out to her and tell her she was a big influence on their lives.

When the program downsized, Monica’s position was eliminated, and she went back to school full time at Marion Tech and graduated from nursing school in 2005. She was unemployed, making it possible to give her full attention to nursing school and her two children. Ironically the old PIC office, the then Workforce Investment Act (WIA) where she used to work, paid for her schooling because she was a displaced worker from her last two positions.

After finishing nursing school, Monica married Jason Dyer in Las Vegas at the Little Church of the West in 2006. He is a son of Toby and Karen (Bowser) Dyer. They were blessed with their parents and some siblings attending the wedding in Vegas as well. The event brings back lots of pleasant memories that were shared by the family. Jason is a truck driver for Dayton Freight Lines out of Mansfield. He is home every day, but it’s hard work and long days. They enjoy camping and boating together at Lake Erie. He loves to fish, and their freezer is pretty well filled with perch and walleye, but he is always ready for more.

The biggest part of Monica’s career has been home health nursing. While she would probably still be doing it, she got attacked by a dog in 2015 while working. She was at a local apartment complex to see a patient. When she got out of her car, a dog charged and attacked her, unprovoked. Monica was sent to OSU Trauma Center with the majority of her injuries to both legs. She was off work for five weeks while she healed, but the trauma of the event lasted much longer. Due to that incident, she wasn’t able to do home health any longer because of the fear of the incident; she was suffering from PTSD.

Monica did a lot of therapy and self-care to come back from the trauma and also changed her specialty to oncology. It so happened she was working in oncology when she developed breast cancer herself. She has been working for OhioHealth in their oncology program since 2017. She has worked in the medical oncology office as a nurse navigator and currently is the oncology program manager. OhioHealth Marion General just opened the beautiful Marion Cancer Center in October 2022.

Monica was diagnosed in June 2020 with invasive lobular breast cancer. She had a mastectomy in July 2020 and then began five months of chemo in August 2020, and then five weeks of radiation that ended in March 2021. Her reconstruction failed in January 2022, causing her to make the decision not to pursue further reconstruction. Monica had surgery on Dec. 8 — her fifth and hopefully final surgery where she chose an aesthetic flat closure, a form of reconstruction to not reconstruct.

Monica feels she is blessed to overcome cancer and continue to work with patients with similar stories. She is enjoying life with her husband Jason, and their four adult sons and teenage daughter — Michael, Levi, Bryce (and wife Jessica), Brock and Macy. They also have four grandchildren.

Go online for more of Mary Fox’s stories and photos on bucyrustelegraphforum.com. If you are interested in sharing a story, write Mary Fox, 931 Marion Road, Bucyrus, OH 44820 or email littlefoxfactory@columbus.rr.com.

This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Monica Dyer's career path and cancer survival story