Support For Katie and Darryl

In 2014, during her first year of nursing school Katie (who turns 22 at the end of June) was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Without missing a beat, she went through chemotherapy and continued on with her schooling, working nearly full time and going to school full time. The sheer grit and determination Katie has shown throughout her schooling is nothing less than extraordinary. She also underwent emergency gallbladder surgery during this time and her husband, Darryl also underwent emergency surgery (requiring being flown to Edmonton) for a collapsed lung this past winter.The longest period of clear cervical biopsies since Katie’s original diagnosis has been a year. Katie and Darryl were married last August and together they began to dream and make plans for when she was done school. Before that happened, another cervical biopsy came back with pre-cancerous cells. In a quest to halt the disease Katie began low dose chemotherapy while in the final month of her schooling.During this time Katie began to experience increasing pain in her leg and just shy of two weeks after receiving her Nursing Degree, while she was in training for her dream nursing job, Katie was diagnosed with Stage 2 Osteosarcoma. She has 4 tumours on her left leg as well as a partial fracture of her femur due to the cancer.Katie immediately began cancer treatment at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton and shortly thereafter flew to Ottawa to be in a case study at the Ottawa Hospital General Campus where they are trying to discover links between those who have Osteosarcoma and have had another form of cancer in the past. She underwent chemotherapy and radiation in the same week for several weeks. Recent tests have shown that one of Katie’s tumours has grown, two have shrunk and one has stayed the same. In an effort to halt the progress of her cancer Katie has had radioactive seeds (brachytherapy) implanted into her leg at the tumour sites. At this time, they are hopeful that these will shrink the tumours enough so that they can operate to remove the tumours and do bone grafts. There is also the possibility that Katie will have to have her leg amputated.The reason for this Go Fund me campaign is as her husband Darryl puts it, “Money is the least of our worries at the moment, but sadly it isn’t the least of our problems.” The money that we hope to raise from this campaign will help to cover Katie’s cost of living while in Ottawa for treatment as well as offsetting the lack of income while receiving treatment. Darryl has stayed behind in order to keep them going financially although he plans to join Katie in Ottawa once surgery is scheduled.