Donate to help Ashley Hall with medical expenses

My name is James, and this is my dear, beautiful friend, Ashley Hall. This past January, she became a statistic. At the age of 41, roughly one year after having her first mammogram, what was originally dismissed as a "fatty deposit" or "dense tissue" exploded into what she is now forced to deal with.

Ashley has Stage 3, HR- HER2+, Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. In layman’s terms; the rarest and most aggressive form of breast cancer, affecting only 4% of all breast cancer patients.

Ashley has many, many friends in the Frederick, MD region, and I'm pretty sure all would agree that she is a fighter, and has a tenacity to not back down from most any challenge. And yet even though she is taking this fight with cancer head on, there are some financial challenges that she can't handle. And that is why I started this GoFundMe.

Those of you who know Ashley are likely familiar with her love of performing and being a very active member of the theatre and performing arts community. She also is one of the most caring, big hearted people I've ever known. You may not know that she is a teacher in the Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland at Urbana Middle School, formerly with Loudon County Public Schools in Virginia.

Ashley began working with FCPS this past fall, four months before she would get her diagnosis. And here lies the need for donations. After leaving LCPS and starting with FCPS, she does not have paid disability leave, and has already used the very few paid days off she had accrued. Now every day she has to take off, is a FMLA day without pay.

Her treatment currently consists of six (6) chemotherapy visits, spaced three weeks apart, where she is working a half day and scheduling the therapy for early afternoons. As of this writing, she has completed two (2) rounds. However, because of the aggressiveness of the treatment being done, she is forced to take days off without pay following those treatments, due to extreme fatigue and gastrointestinal side affects that make it nearly impossible for her to be comfortable, let alone focusing on her students for hours at a time.

And that is just the beginning of her treatment journey. Following her chemotherapy she will be having surgery, and then radiation and immunotherapy treatments. All of which will be costing her days off from teaching without being paid.

The funds being raised here will go a long way in covering monies lost for those days when she is unable to be in her school teaching. They will help Ashley meet her financial obligations of rent, utilities, and groceries along with any medical expenses that are not covered by her insurance.

On behalf of Ashley, I thank you for your consideration.