Cathy Jones' Battle with Leukemia

Cathy was initially diagnosed in August 2016 with anal cancer after a visit to her primary care physician for general poor feeling. Once she was diagnosed she made the choice to treat her cancer in Florida, where her sister, Patti lives. She would be near her mother, sister, brother in law, nephew and niece. She received chemotherapy and radiation therapy throughout the fall and winter and into 2017. After all of her treatments, she was given an "all clear" and was in remission. Since then, she has continued to get a clean bill of health from her oncologist in Michigan at each follow up. Cathy has been working hard, as usual, at her job as a district manager for Family Dollar Stores and living life to the fullest since her first battle with cancer. Seems as though all was back to "normal". In July 2018 Cathy took the vacation of a lifetime! An Alaskan cruise. She had an absolute blast, but she was really struggling with low energy just prior to the cruise, throughout, and after as well. Again she returned to her primary care provider in August 2018 to report extreme low energy, nightly fevers for the past few weeks, and sweats. Dr. ran her standard tests on a Friday and planned to follow up with Cathy the next week. Well Saturday morning the Dr. called Cathy and told her that she needed to go to the nearest Emergency Department as she had "no white blood cells". Cathy immediately went to the McLaren ED. A slew of test were ran and after many days of speculating it was confirmed that Cathy has Mixed Phenotype Leukemia, a rare type of cancer. We have also been told that she has TP53 mutation which makes treatment more difficult and her case even more rare. Cathy again made the choice to receive her treatment in Florida to be near her family and beloved great-nephew, Gabriel, who was born February 21, 2018. She was flown down to Tampa with her dog Maylin in September and started her journey with Moffitt Cancer Center. At Moffitt they spent 3 weeks trying to get her "numbers up". Meaning they were increasing her WBC's, neutrophils, and RBC's with medication and blood transfusions. She finally got to a point when her levels were safe enough for discharge. At this point she has only had one round of chemotherapy, which was done in Michigan at McLaren due to her blood counts being too low. Now, the next step is to be readmitted to Moffitt on Monday 9/17/18 to start her next round of chemo. They have forewarned her that this will be bad. She will be sick and miserable. After she receives her chemo, however many rounds it may be, when she enters remission, she will have a bone marrow transplant. She has a very long road ahead of her--the next year and a half will be tough, but she is a strong woman with the most positive attitude you could imagine! She also has God on her side. Please pray for a smooth chemo process, a quick entry to remission, and a successful bone marrow match. At this time, Cathy is now out of work for the 2nd time in 2 years and battling cancer for the 2nd time. Please consider donating to this extraordinary woman as she fights leukemia.