Cathy would like your help!

Hello All. This is a story about my mom’s background and where she is at in life today looking for any help she can get.

As most of you know she has been a special needs teacher for over 40 years, she taught younger adolescent children with broken down homes and with her own money provided those kids with school supplies as well as extra fun stuff like a prize box of toys and gifts for the holidays. She provided those kids with things their families couldn’t. Then After many years of doing that she then moved on to teaching at another school with adult autistic students to prepare them for their lives out in the world.

Until recently she took a bad fall in a food store. The next day she went to the hospital to get checked out and little did we know they would do an MRI on her to then discover she has a brain tumor.

She has seen many doctors, she has gotten many diagnoses. She’s gone from hearing the worst possible scenario to it not being as bad as they say. She is very upset over the diagnosis because hearing so many different ones she’s not sure what to believe.

On top of it all she has been in the hospital for spiked fevers and extremely low white cell count. Her immune system is very weak and anyone with so much a cough she will catch it. She finally received a bed at upenn hospital in philly where they are doing multiple test. MRI/PET SCAN/BONE MARROW biopsy. They now believe it may not be Rosai-Dorfman disease but some extremely rare mimicking that disease. Again she is getting many different answers and sadly this is all just the beginning. Until we are at 100% diagnosis her treatments can't start yet. And then there's the start of the treatments so on and so forth.

She is very depressed; she wants nothing more than to be happy and healthy. Living life with family and friends and of course enjoying time with her new granddaughter Ellie. She is not bringing home any income and medical bills are piling up along with not having money for every day essential things. The doctors are dragging this out which is causing her more stress.

I know my mom very well, she hates having to ask for charity and she wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t a true dire need for help during this difficult time she is going through right now. As people say no amount is too big or too small. Every bit helps. Even if you can’t afford to donate, sending a nice card to help up her spirits would be appreciated as well, just contact me for mailing details at [email redacted]. I just hope some people out there can help her like she's helped many people including those kids all those years. And anyone who is able to, we thank you in advance because it will be one less stress factor my mom needs to focus on. Thank you for your time in listening to her story.

-The Katin Family