'My name is Ashley and I’m 41 years old, and this is my second time with stage 4 cancer. Within 5 years. My first diagnosis was stage 4 Hopkins Lymphoma I was diagnosed on Christmas Eve. Here we are 5 years later and I have Stage 4 colorectal cancer. I was told that was impossible for me to get because all my surgeries one my intestines and colon. I also suffer from Crohn’s disease, and Multiple Sclerosis. I’m exhausted watching my results come in, and the percent rates are so scary.Hemoglobin so low that’s where a lot of the tiredness is coming from. And I feel like the doctor runs my labs I feel like he’s playing chicken with my life. I just finished 6 rounds of chemo, taking a pause. I have had scan after scan, and wer finding things that’s a late detection of a fractured back from a car accident few months ago. And an enlarged spleen if I sneeze wrong it could burst, killing me. Praying to god every night he will let me live another day. I am scared of death, not knowing if and when I will take those last breaths. My children need a mom, despite Matt and I went to school together, we were married before we snagged each other, over facebook as I was in misery 6 years ago from pain etc with crohns we fell in love. Matthew who was a SGT in the Army. He was blown up in Iraq while the rest of his convoy lost their lives. He is one of the few people in the world that earned a Purple Heart. Since 2003, I have spent most of this time in the hospital, not being able to see my children grow up. Having a job has been impossible to keep with everything, leaving Matt to provide for us, who also has Crohn’s and many setbacks from the blast, rendering him unable to work. I have always given the shirt off my back for anyone that has ever needed anything and always did things with my community, before my husband and I had to move to the Grand Rapids area, and we have no friends or family close by. We are not the type of people that have ever asked for help. I am now in the care of other doctors that are spending so much time with us to get the pain knocked down so i can live with what little bit of time I might have left. Please be with me during this emotional journey im going through again.

If you can spare a few dollars so we can continue to travel to Grand Rapids from the Holland area daily for chemo and radiation, we have a few weeks' worth of scans coming so we can figure out if and how much it has worked. I need multiple surgeries and am waiting to see if Mayo or Cleveland will have better options for those. We only have one car, as I’m not able to drive due to my health issues. It makes getting things done nearly impossible. Back to having no friends or family, my husband and I have lost our parents to cancer. And the children we do have, some have aged out and are in college, or the younger ones are with a previous spouse because of health issues. Please, if you can read this, we are beyond grateful for that help.

As of 3/14/25 we got the news we wont be traveling to Cleveland Clinic on Sunday as our insurance is out-of- network. I’ve have been through so much heartache this last few weeks. The financial advisor called, said that I would have to pay out of pocket and that 50% down was 15,000 dollars are you kidding me?! So then she continues to tell me I owe $15,000 more when I got to the appointment. How can you justify doing that to someone. And every specialist appointments I have had the doctor literally is with us for maybe 15 minutes.

Matt is having to take so much time off of work, to take me to all my chemotherapy treatments and scans and trying to be a loving husband despite his wife is dying. Please I don’t ask for a pity party,I’m asking for a little help so we ca get by these next few months with Ease knowing he can the day off work. And we can still make our mortgage payment so we have a roof over our heads.

I have alway been the one to help everyone out when they needed anything. My husband got blown up for our country please help a veterans wife.