Please help Kim Ayotte Wittmann!

She was in every picture...until she wasn’t...” - Jess in “Miss You Already”


Kimberly (Kimi) is my best friend/sister. If you are blessed enough to know her, you know she is an amazing person. An amazing person who Is now fading away slowly because she has Stage 3 Breast Cancer. A variety called Inflammatory Breast Cancer - IBC is very aggressive and doesn’t have a good outlook - it very quickly destroys all cells around it. The survival rate without swift and aggressive care is poor. 

Kim has started to undergo chemo before surgery as this is protocol for IBC to stop this beast of a disease and make surgical options more viable. In just a few short weeks, the chemo has rendered her so sick that even making it to the restroom is a chore. 

As I watch her try to be positive, I was with her when when the effects of chemo began to consume her. Her hair started to fall out and it broke my heart to help her shave her head. No-one should have to undergo this. This Fall, she will undergo a double mastectomy as well as removal of her lymph nodes. This will be followed by several more months of dangerous radiation. Her radiation will be more dangerous because most of the cancer is on her left side, near her heart and that could damage it, as well.

Once this is all done, the arduous task of reconstruction can begin. So, the road she has started on is a long journey and one we can only hope and pray she can make it through. I’m dying inside watching her begin to deteriorate while admiring her strength and tenacity in this. She has led a difficult life and is such a sweet person with such wonderful energy, you can’t help but love her. That is why I am asking you, begging you, to spare even just a few dollars to help her with food and other necessities she needs during this time.

Kim has always been the strong one through the storms of life. She has overcome a life of abuse and poverty and so many things. I remember times in our 20’s when she would be working 3 jobs to care for her Mom and keep her own independence. She managed to get a college degree while caring for her sick mother and had a good job that she loved. She lost her Mom not so long ago and she and her husband moved to Atlanta to be near his kids and their first grandbaby. Family she desperately always sought. Then, this horrible disease began to take over her life. She had just been working a temp job after the move, so she had no short term disability. She had to leave her job because of the chemo. The IBC is such a serious disease that it is on a special list for Social Security Disability to be approved quickly. She did get approved but there is a mandatory waiting period of 6 months, so she will not receive any benefit until October. Her husband’s income cannot sustain all of their needs alone. Cancer brings many medical costs not covered by insurance and their housing costs, food, utilities and daily needs are at immediate risk. 

We were right there next to each other for all of the crazy and good and bad times of our lives. We lived together so many times it seems countless. She holds so much of both mine and my daughter’s heart and has been the most amazing aunt to my kids. We traveled and lived and laughed and cried together for almost 40 years.. So, you can see why this is a necessary thing that I felt I had to do for her. The least I could do to lend a hand when she has never asked for anything, no matter what life threw at her.

She was originally so against this and it took much convincing that this is a Must have and need, not just a want. 

So, I am desperately and humbly asking you to please donate if you can. I cannot express enough how much I have watched her conquer in life. To allow this kind of cancer to take her down is such an unfair and inhumane situation. Please help her so that this softens the blow enough to allow her to keep finding the strength to fight. As always please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. She really needs all the help and positivity she can get right now.

A heartfelt thank you from myself, her husband and all of the other family and loved ones she has, especially the little ones in her life whom hold her so dear.