Colleen Jantzi Boswell

Earlier this year, Colleen was dealing with some bothersome stomach ulcers.  After a fairly routine endoscopy to check on the healing process of her ulcers, her doctor was shocked when the pathology results came back with something very unexpected – gastric cancer.  Colleen was diagnosed several weeks ago with signet ring cell carcinoma, an aggressive form of stomach cancer, rarely seen in someone her age. Over the last few weeks, she’s undergone a barrage of diagnostic tests to see if and how far the cancer has spread in her body, but unfortunately, most have come back inconclusive.  Her care team has decided that they need to “treat now, ask questions later” and proceed with surgery as soon as possible. She will be undergoing surgery for a partial gastrectomy the first week of April, during which they will remove the affected part of her stomach and surrounding lymph nodes and tissue. During surgery they will be able to explore and biopsy the other potentially affected areas in her body to determine if further treatment will be needed after the operation.

Colleen is an Alcuin “lifer” and started as a student in 1983.  She began working in the classroom in 1998 and has been there off and on ever since!  Her family is an Alcuin legacy - her mom, Rene Jantzi, was a teacher there for 35 years and her son, Nova has been there since seventeen months old.  Colleen has cared for countless children over the years and now it’s our turn to help care for her.

If you know Colleen, you know she’s always ready to fight the good fight – whether it’s on behalf of a child, a loved one, or even an animal.  This time she’s fighting on her own behalf and she needs our help and support. Medical bills are already rolling in and she hasn’t even started treatment yet.  Funds raised will go directly toward supporting her while she’s undergoing treatment and unable to work. While we are hopeful that the surgical team won’t find anything else and that surgery will be all that’s needed, we realize that further treatment may be needed to beat this and want to support her accordingly.