#EmilyStrong

Emily Ogden is one of the sweetest, caring, and most loveable people you might ever meet. Her life was turned upside down on August 2, 2022. She had been battling what she believed to be just an annoying cold for a couple of months. After no improvement, her provider ordered a chest x-ray and a CT scan. At this point, they found a 12cm mass in her chest. They immediately sent her to Lubbock for more investigation. After a couple of weeks in the ICU, multiple tests, biopsies, and two heart procedures at UMC, they concluded that Emily has a rare, aggressive cancer called “Primary Mediastinal B-Cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma” or PMBCL. This cancer affects specialized white blood cells called B-lymphocytes and has caused the tumor in her chest and also her kidney.

PMBCL most often affects young adult women and is extremely rare. After her diagnosis, doctors immediately came up with her treatment plan. The only option was to have Emily fight this with an extreme chemotherapy plan. Her initial treatment will include six rounds of chemotherapy, with each round lasting five days of 24-hour infusions. She has gone through 2 rounds so far, one in Texas and then one in North Carolina. After much prayer, she decided to move to North Carolina to live with her sister Cheryl, who is a medical provider, where God opened doors to allow her to enter the clinical trial she was praying for with Advent Health Oncology.

Emily’s journey has just begun, and she has a long way to go. However, to meet Emily is to love Emily. She always has a smile on her face and the most positive attitude. She wants this GoFundMe page to help with medical expenses and raise awareness of this rare cancer that has come into her life. Emily trusts Jesus as her life has been flipped upside down. She knows that He is always with her. This has forced her to be still and truly feel His love. Emily desires any money raised over her medical expenses to be donated to research for this rare type of cancer or to be given to someone else battling what she has just gone through. According to her oncology team, by the end of her treatment, she will have gone through almost one million dollars of treatment. Any donations and prayers as she travels this journey are so appreciated.