Help for the Hansens!

To know the Hansens is to love them. They’ve spent so much of their time helping the community, and now it’s time for us to help them back!

Brief background: Mark and Jodi Hansen have been married for 36 years. They are the parents of two wonderful sons, Brendon and Jacob, and parents in law of Abagail. Mark and Jodi have dedicated their lives to helping, advocating for, and supporting people with disabilities. You can’t really hear about the disability community in Utah without hearing about them, too. But more than that, they’re just plain good people.

Unfortunately, in March of last year, Mark was diagnosed with cancer. He’s been fighting with all he has. However, at his most recent appointment, the doctors didn’t give him great news. It looks like Mark will be leaving his family much sooner than any of us would like.

This is where we come in. I want to help this wonderful family make some amazing memories, and relieve some of their financial burden. Please consider donating to them through this GoFundMe (the money will go directly to them), or if you prefer, you can send money to Jodi’s Venmo @Jodi-Hansen-6. Last 4 digits of her phone number are 7369.

If you are not able to donate (or even if you are), please consider sharing this far and wide!

We love you, Hansens!

Mark’s words:

SPOILER ALERT: Mark's time is winding down.

So, we met with our oncology team after getting scanned, inspected, detected, etc... It looks like this second chemo effort is not as effective as we wanted. The cancer is growing in my bones, even though it's staying away from other organs like the lungs, the kidneys, or the brain, etc... They gave us three primary treatment options. One of them was a harsher chemo, another was a radioactive infusion, and a third was hospice.

Based on their knowledge of my stats and numbers, their trajectories, and their experiences with all of these, the answer to the big question (How much longer do I have, doc?) on all three treatment options was 6 months to a year. The side effects of the chemo and the infusion both look pretty grim and, likely, they'd only buy me, at best, a couple of additional months here on Earth.

Jodi and I still haven't made any definite decisions yet, but it's very likely we'll opt out of the treatments and go for some sort of palliative/hospice care. These last four months have taught me that I'd like to be as alert and out of pain as I can while still remaining functional for as long as possible.

Want to help us out? That's easy, just give me a call or a visit. I thrive on that stuff! Come hang out with me. Also, check in on Jodi, Brendon, Abagail, or Jacob. This won't be easy for them, either, and they could sure use a break from it all.

A big thanks to everyone for all of your support thus far. I have the best family and amazing friends!