Support Lily's Battle Against Cancer

Hi again, it’s me. On 2/5 I took Lily in because I was concerned about a mass that had grown between her shoulders (some of you may remember she previously had a sarcoma that needed to be removed), and I was advised that her lymph nodes were inflamed. They took samples for testing, and on 2/7 I got the call that she has lymphoma and a mast cell tumor.

Unfortunately, the lymphoma will lead to the end of her life, but there are treatment options available. Unfortunately again, that treatment is incredibly expensive. She had an oncology consultation on 2/11 and I was advised that there are 3 treatment options, one of them being simply comfort care.

The “gold standard” chemo treatment is far more than I could ever imagine putting her through, but the second option they gave me would be to bring her in for 6 chemo treatments every 3 weeks. That would hopefully give her another 6-9 months of quality life. Each one of those treatments is estimated to be about $1,014.79, and that’s not something I can manage on my own.

I have applied for a couple of grants we qualify for, but there’s no guarantee of when they will get back to me or even if we will be approved, and we’re working on borrowed time. The doctor explained to me that the prognosis clock starts from the day of diagnosis, and right now if she stays on just the comfort care (a steroid/pepcid/benadryl combo), I will likely only get a couple more months with her. This is just the first goal of a few, but I figure if I can buy myself more time to get more money together for the treatments that’s better than nothing. 

I don’t expect anything, but I’m not ready to give up on her, and I have to try every option I have, which is why I’m here again.

Though I’m not ever going to be ready to let her go, I’m certainly not ready this soon. She’s doing okay on the current meds but I can tell she’s still unsettled and uncomfortable.

Those who know me know how much she means to me, we’ve had almost 7 wonderful years together, and she’s truly saved my life in more ways than one. She’s been with me for all of my 20s. The concept of “we rescued each other” is more than accurate.