Hi, I'm Bekah and I'm fighting stage 3 Colorectal Cancer.

In August of 2023 I was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer after months of trying to figure out what was going on with my gut. After the diagnosis things seemed to move pretty fast yet slow. I was scheduled to get a power port placed on the right side of my chest and started my first round of chemotherapy on September 19th, 2023, which also happens to be my and my husband Bryan's wedding anniversary. That first round of chemotherapy was rough and frustrating and full of side effects that were not fun. It ran from September 19th till December 26th (Merry Christmas to me). After that I had about a month off before I started chemo radiation therapy in February. Being told that the radiation should not be as side effect heavy I was cleared to return to work. Unfortunately, the side effects from the radiation were too much and I ended up having to go back out on leave for a little bit while I finished up radiation. After that was done I had a big tumor removal/debulking/HIPEC surgery (which is another type of chemotherapy treatment where they basically flush your insides with warm chemo, let it sit for 45-90 minutes then flush it back out, leaving behind a lot of scar tissue.) I also received a loop ileostomy and have an ostomy bag still from that, which was very easy to get use to but still has it's trials and ups and downs. I was in the hospital for 10 days following surgery and finally got to go and see our huskies and sleep in my own bed again. I was again out of work from the end of April 2024 till about the beginning of September 2024.

Thinking we were out of the woods and doing fine, I returned to work. It was rough getting back into that routine but it was nice to be back to a more normal schedule was nice. Then in November, right before Thanksgiving, I ended up in the ER with severe abdominal pain. We found out that I had gallstones and that they wanted to remove my gallbladder sooner rather than later. I ended up having that surgery in early December and they gave us some not so good news. The cancer had returned, they had found a small deposit in my abdomen and a little deposit was on my gallbladder. This is not the news any cancer fighter wants to hear, but my team is amazing and we came up with a game plan pretty dang fast.

I am now in my second round of chemotherapy which I started January 14th 2025. Our goal now is remission, with as many rounds of chemo as needed to get me there. This is a marathon, not a sprint as my oncologist likes to say. With the news of my cancer returning, I took another leave from work and Bryan also took sometime off to help take care of me. He has now gone back to work and I have had to make the tough choice of leaving my job to focus on my health and fighting this cancer back into the ground where it belongs.

This gofundme is being set up to help us cover monthly bills, medical bills as needed and just to help keep us afloat while I am fighting this again. Although I am hoping to find some part time remote work to hopefully help with the income, I do not know if trying to work right now with be a good thing with my chemo side effects. Any little bit will help, and we are ever so appreciative of any help me receive. I don't normally ask for help with bills but we have realized that we can not do this on our own anymore (not that we were ever on our own, just that I can be stubborn and not like asking for help.) Even if you are unable to help, just sharing our gofundme will help us.

Thank you to everybody in advance!

Bekah and Bryan