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**THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO DONATED TO THE FUNDRAISER!!!! Through your kindness and generosity, you raised over $8,000+ for Jill's Journey.
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Many family and friends of ours have heard about the breast cancer journey of our strong and beautiful Jill (Watson) Michels, my brother Dave's wife and mother of four teenagers. So many of you have expressed a wish to help. Our family decided to try to raise money as quickly as possible to help them with expenses as Jill starts the next battle, with her family at her side. The donations will go directly to Dave and his family through GoFundMe.
The following is from their CaringBridge.com page, in David's own words:
"I was hoping that the next update that I would be sending out would be one of Jill's progression of healing from 14 months of treatment for her breast cancer. To use an analogy from Jill, that is unfortunately, not in the cards dealt for her.
Roughly, 6 weeks ago Jill started experiencing short, spells of dizziness and mild headache. Much like when you may stand up too quickly. Not taking any chances we immediately went to the Dr's who had her get a brain MRI which came back clear. Not knowing the causes of these spells we went to an ENT who ran some tests over the course of some time meanwhile these spells were increasing with frequency and duration. We reached a point last week where the pain and dizziness were intolerable (this coming from a woman who took virtually no pain medication aside from over the counter through her entire chemotherapy and was mowing the lawn 5 days after a double mastectomy). Thankfully, we were able to talk to her primary care physician (who had retired, but gave Jill his cell phone and told her if she ever needed anything to call, which in our desperation, we did) who was able to get her admitted to the hospital. They found her spinal pressure to be over 2 x's normal which was the cause of much of the painful symptoms. A lumbar puncture relieved the pain caused by the extremely high pressure in her spinal fluid.
Unfortunately, the procedure did not completely alleviate everything. At that point, complete, brain and spine MRIs were done and Jill was transferred over to her oncology team at OSU's James Cancer hospital. It was there that we received the news that Jill's cancer had spread to her cerebral spinal fluid as a condition called leptomeningeal disease. For those that know Jill well, she's a straight-shooter and extremely honest and she wants to be completely honest with everyone in regards to this. This is a stage 4 cancer that there is no known cure. If you don't know go out and look it up the numbers associated with this cancer, they are not great. Life expectancy after diagnosis is roughly 4 weeks with no treatment, and 4-6 months with treatment. Also, if we have learned anything in this process, it's that every cancer is different and everyone's body is different....and those are just numbers.
Jill's team of doctors at the The James had her treatment plan setup and in motion the morning after we were transferred. We stayed for two days for a procedure to be performed, her chemotherapy drugs were delivered [...]and she is submitted her for 2 trial drugs which will hopefully start as soon as possible.
Jill is going after this like she has everything else. Full throttle. There is not going to be any waiting around for anything. When we told the kids, her approach is that we are going to continue to do things exactly the way we have been. Nothing changes unless it has to or we want it to. Thankfully, she has agreed to give up most of the house cleaning duties and tone down yard work as part of that. [....]
We would be remiss for not saying how thankful for the support of our families and friends through this. You all have been so fantastic and we will be likely leaning on your more as Jill begins down this fork in the path of her journey.
With much love,
Jill, Dave and kids "
_________
Many family and friends of ours have heard about the breast cancer journey of our strong and beautiful Jill (Watson) Michels, my brother Dave's wife and mother of four teenagers. So many of you have expressed a wish to help. Our family decided to try to raise money as quickly as possible to help them with expenses as Jill starts the next battle, with her family at her side. The donations will go directly to Dave and his family through GoFundMe.
The following is from their CaringBridge.com page, in David's own words:
"I was hoping that the next update that I would be sending out would be one of Jill's progression of healing from 14 months of treatment for her breast cancer. To use an analogy from Jill, that is unfortunately, not in the cards dealt for her.
Roughly, 6 weeks ago Jill started experiencing short, spells of dizziness and mild headache. Much like when you may stand up too quickly. Not taking any chances we immediately went to the Dr's who had her get a brain MRI which came back clear. Not knowing the causes of these spells we went to an ENT who ran some tests over the course of some time meanwhile these spells were increasing with frequency and duration. We reached a point last week where the pain and dizziness were intolerable (this coming from a woman who took virtually no pain medication aside from over the counter through her entire chemotherapy and was mowing the lawn 5 days after a double mastectomy). Thankfully, we were able to talk to her primary care physician (who had retired, but gave Jill his cell phone and told her if she ever needed anything to call, which in our desperation, we did) who was able to get her admitted to the hospital. They found her spinal pressure to be over 2 x's normal which was the cause of much of the painful symptoms. A lumbar puncture relieved the pain caused by the extremely high pressure in her spinal fluid.
Unfortunately, the procedure did not completely alleviate everything. At that point, complete, brain and spine MRIs were done and Jill was transferred over to her oncology team at OSU's James Cancer hospital. It was there that we received the news that Jill's cancer had spread to her cerebral spinal fluid as a condition called leptomeningeal disease. For those that know Jill well, she's a straight-shooter and extremely honest and she wants to be completely honest with everyone in regards to this. This is a stage 4 cancer that there is no known cure. If you don't know go out and look it up the numbers associated with this cancer, they are not great. Life expectancy after diagnosis is roughly 4 weeks with no treatment, and 4-6 months with treatment. Also, if we have learned anything in this process, it's that every cancer is different and everyone's body is different....and those are just numbers.
Jill's team of doctors at the The James had her treatment plan setup and in motion the morning after we were transferred. We stayed for two days for a procedure to be performed, her chemotherapy drugs were delivered [...]and she is submitted her for 2 trial drugs which will hopefully start as soon as possible.
Jill is going after this like she has everything else. Full throttle. There is not going to be any waiting around for anything. When we told the kids, her approach is that we are going to continue to do things exactly the way we have been. Nothing changes unless it has to or we want it to. Thankfully, she has agreed to give up most of the house cleaning duties and tone down yard work as part of that. [....]
We would be remiss for not saying how thankful for the support of our families and friends through this. You all have been so fantastic and we will be likely leaning on your more as Jill begins down this fork in the path of her journey.
With much love,
Jill, Dave and kids "
Organizer and beneficiary
David Michels
Beneficiary