My name is Michael and my wife’s name is Melissa. We have been happily married for 15 years, though we have been together much longer. We have 3 daughters and 10 grandchildren including 4 that currently live with us.

Writing this seems to be one of the most difficult things that I have ever had to do. Bearing your soul to family, friends and perfect strangers asking for help is not something that I ever thought I would have to do, yet here I am.

Recently Melissa was diagnosed with stage 4 inflammatory breast cancer. It has spread to her lymph nodes, lungs, thyroid, and surrounding muscles; we are currently waiting for an MRI because they now fear that it may have spread to her brain.

Before the cancer, my wife was an outgoing and very active, walking our 2 dogs for 4-5 miles a day, helping out with all the grandkids and doing most of the cleaning in our household. We both love the outdoors; hiking, camping and road trips with our dogs is what we enjoy doing whenever we can.

Now, Melissa barely has the strength to take the dogs just 100 feet outside without getting wiped out, she has to distance herself from our grandchildren and she gets the urge to help out around the house but is unable to. Staying away from the grandkids is hardest on her because her relationship with them is very close; one filled with love, kindness and the most patience I have ever seen from anyone.

Our living situation is not conducive to a healthy living environment because out of the 4 grandkids living with us. 3 are in school which we all know is a breeding ground of colds, viruses and other sicknesses that

my wife cannot afford to catch during her chemotherapy. Because of this we need to move out as soon as possible so that we can live in a cleaner, more germ free and stress-free environment.

We are broke right now. The cost of traveling to all of her appointments and the cost of all the things that I bought to trying to make her more comfortable during her chemo drained the little bit of savings we had left.

I love my wife more than anything else in this world and want to give her the best chance at beating this cancer so anything that you can give will be appreciated.

God bless,

Michael and Melissa.