Brenda's Fight

Hi. My name is Traci Ernster. As many of you already know, my mom, Brenda Moore was recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer. This all came out of nowhere. Over the past couple of months, mom was having a hard time eating, always feeling full. She began to start losing weight and her hemoglobin was low. Her primary physician sent her to a hematologist. After some tests came back, the Dr. met with us voicing his concerns for malignancy. Mom did pretty good with the news. We took her and dad out to dinner and she actually ate the best that she had eaten in a very long time. This was on November 11th. On November 12th mom started vomiting and just didn't feel well. I went over to their house. Mom was very weak and pale and also looked a little droopy on one side of her face. We called 911 and got her to Union Hospital Clinton where they determined that she had a small bowel obstruction. They inserted an NG tube to try to relieve some pressure in her abdomen. At this point we did not have a confirmation of cancer, let alone what kind. However, they were leaning more towards Gynecological. After consulting with Dr. Kunapareddy, they felt it would be best to transfer her to IU Health University Hospital. They did a biopsy and started doing clamping trials to wean her off of the ng tube. We were here for about 5 days and finally leaving on a full liquid diet with hopes of introducing some thicker foods slowly. The next day she spiked a fever so back to the er we went. While there, we got the call that the biopsy did confirm cancer of a gynecological type. Still leaning towards ovarian. The treatment would be a chemo class with 3 rounds of chemo over a 9 week period then surgery to remove the cancer then 3 more treatments the same way after that. Her fever broke and the tests came back with no explanation of the fever so they sent her home. We went to chemo class on December 2nd. Mom didn't feel well that morning and starting having nausea. While sitting in the class, she started vomiting again. I feared that this was another obstruction. We took her back to our house. She progressively got worse and more weak and barely able to stand with help. We took her to the er in Clinton again. They confirmed that she had another obstruction, but worse than the first one. Another ng tube was placed and she felt great relief. We spent from December 2nd to the 8th there. Finally we got transferred back to IU. Her surgeon came in. Our plan had changed. Mom was now going to need surgery to unblock the bowel, but first they were going to need to place a picc line for nutrition, blood draws and other meds and an ivc filter since mom had developed a blood clot. She had those procedures on December 9th. She did great with them. Surgery would be at 8:00am Saturday December 11th. That brings us to where we are now. They took mom to surgery this morning. It went well, but we still have a long road ahead. Mom is now in the surgical ICU with hopes to move to the oncology floor tomorrow.

I have created this account to help offset some of the medical expenses that insurance doesn't cover. Medical supplies and special needs for mom, hotel accommodations while she is in indy, parking fees, gas costs and food expenses. Also since mom is not able to go back to work any time soon, that income will eventually run out so we're trying to raise money to help with general living expenses as well.

Positive attitude and relieving stress are huge when it comes to the healing process. By trying to relieve some of the financial strain, I feel that it will help relieve some worry and stresses in that aspect. So if you can find it in your heart to lend a hand, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts in advance. Love and blessings to you all.