I am Marisha Stawiski, a provider at Corewell Health Orthopedics. I have been lucky enough to work with April Prentice since 2013, when she started her career at Spectrum Health Medical Group in the Department of Orthopedics.

She didn’t even have a chance to schedule her first Mammogram. April was still in her thirties when she was diagnosed with Stage IV Metastatic breast cancer, which had already metastasized to her bones. She didn’t feel a lump and didn’t qualify for recommended screening for prevention due to her age. So, it wasn’t until April started to experience pain in her leg that she even talked to her doctor. At first, they sent her for physical therapy, suspecting that she had pulled a muscle while doing yard work. Only when therapy made things worse did they begin to realize that something else was going on.

She didn’t have a chance to fight. And she will never get to ring that bell. Her form of metastatic cancer is a terminal diagnosis.

April is a single mother of a young teenage son. Caleb started high school this year, and April would sure love to see him graduate. She is trying every treatment they will prescribe for her, but again; her treatments will never end. She never gets to be that person to rejoice on the last day of Chemo.

And meanwhile, Cancer is expensive! Raising a child is expensive! Not to mention, in order to stay in her home, April continues to decline physically and needs to make remodel updates to some areas of her home to make them essentially handicap accessible so that as her physical health declines she and Caleb can remain where they are. This is extremely important to them, as this is a place of comfort and peace for their little family of two (and their sweet cat, Callie). Please help us raise money so that April can spend her remaining time in her own home with her son, and not have to give up the house that she worked so hard to buy for herself and Caleb.

Any amount of money you can give will help immensely. Have you chosen a Holiday Season charity yet? If not, please consider April and her son as your family to help this year.

Bless you.