Beat Pancreatic Cancer - Join Cindy's Fight
Donation protected
What would you do if you only had six months to live? Would you travel to exotic places? Make elaborate purchases or seek final adventures? None of those things went through my mom’s mind when she was told in June 2018 she had only six months to live.
Diagnosis: Stage 4 Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma.
What did come to her mind first and foremost was her family. She told us right away that she would not accept her prognosis and begin fighting with everything she could to LIVE. She was determined to do whatever it took to be the one who defied science and make it to the other side of the evil and aggressive statistics of the disease. Our fight as a family was driven by her realizing the power of positivity and choosing not to give up. She reached out to those around us she knew who prayed and all the most positive people in her life. As insanely strong as she is, she still knew she would need support with the mental fight.
After 4 biopsies, they were finally able to confirm her diagnosis and allow her to start chemotherapy. They initially offered her the “easy” chemo because her oncologist at that time clearly had no hope. Believing her prognosis of “6 months to live”, he wanted her last few months to be tolerable and comfortable with few side effects and “better quality of life”, but little chance of killing the cancer. Instead, she refused and went for the most effective chemo known for her particular cancer.
However, the traditional chemotherapy doses in the cancer center she was at were strong and although their thresholds for administering chemo meant she was getting really strong chemo (ideally every 2 weeks), she wasn’t able to get it that often as her blood counts were frequently too low to safely have treatment. We had her first CT scan after starting chemo in August 2018, and again we were given very little hope from a doctor who did not believe she would survive. We walked out of the room feeling scared and lacking in hope. It was a very quiet drive home.
I watched her struggle with this news. She was not happy with the results, but even more so, she felt her doctor had no hope for her, and ultimately no fight for her. None of us were going to believe she was supposed to slowly die from this without doing everything possible. Although she’d already had a second opinion earlier in her diagnosis, she decided a third opinion was needed and was hoping for someone to start thinking outside the box. She heard about an oncologist, Dr. Ben Chue, in Seattle who used metronomic dosing and did think outside the box. Metronomic dosing is a method of administering chemo weekly at lower doses (compared to the highest dose every three weeks or if your blood counts were good enough). It allows for much more tolerable side effects while continuing to attack the cancer on a more consistent basis, ultimately providing more chemotherapy in a month than high dose therapy.
After a 2 1/2 hour consultation with Dr. Chue, she knew this was where she needed to be. I remember my mom calling me and telling me about the appointment and the information he shared with them about her diagnosis and her recent CT. It was the first time I remember feeling hope since her diagnosis. Someone believed there was a way to get through this and he was going to do it with them! She started the new metronomic dose treatment right away but since she’d been having the highest maximum dose of the harshest chemo for the weeks and months prior, the side effects were catching up with her. Not realizing the toll it was taking on her body, she kept getting sicker and sicker, her body already toxic, and in November 2018 we almost lost her.
The family gathered in the ICU to discuss last wishes and I was on a plane home from Cambodia after receiving the phone call that she only had a 30% chance of ever leaving the hospital. After a touch and go week in the hospital, she finally came home. It took a whole month before she was strong enough to walk up the stairs and sleep in her own bed. She had lost over 20 pounds and was struggling to get her weight and strength back and our family had to fight even harder. She’d been too close to death but we were now confident in our new oncologist and began making the changes he suggested for her optimum health.
After her near death experience, she really began to thrive with her new oncologist and his personalized treatments for her. She also researched alternative treatments that could be effective in the death of cancer and added in whatever she could afford at any given time such as Chinese herb treatments, acupuncture, and many vitamin and nutritional supplements. Additionally, she was a candidate in a clinical trial at UCLA that showed promising results using targeted radiation. Traditional medical chemotherapy and targeted radiation, paired with alternative therapies, plus her deep desire to live fueled the belief that she could really beat this disease.
Over 2019 and into 2020, we saw her improve in mind and body and we consistently saw her tumor markers lower every month (this is a good thing!). Originally her diagnosis was said to be fully inoperable, yet with how stable she had become, discussions of possible surgical options were more likely and hope continued to rise. All CT scans up to mid 2020 had been stable with no new evidence of disease and tumor markers continued to stay in normal range.
She’s been in treatment now for 28 months and that’s really taken its toll on her. Her platelets have consistently been low and although she’s done everything she can to increase them, they remain low. If platelets are too low, chemotherapy can’t be administered safely with the risk of bleeding, both external and internal, increase substantially. Although her tumor markers have been in normal range up until very recently, her low platelet count has limiting the chemo options as many of them reduced her count even further. Options outside of surgery have become more restricted .
Unfortunately, part of the toll on her body has been abdominal swelling. For more than a year, she experienced abdominal growth, often attributed to weight gain or chemo side effects, even though she’s always said it wasn’t normal. In August 2020, the swelling paired with a new pain, one that has caused a lot of discomfort and difficulty in sitting, sleeping, and general mobility. She kept saying to us that it didn’t feel right, it wasn’t just fat. It wasn’t just chemo - something was wrong. Something needed to be done and someone needed to listen to her. With the pain has come quite a lot of abdominal distention and further growth and this prompted an early CT scan.
As often happens with cancer we were thrown a hard and painful curveball. The scan showed significant spread all throughout her abdominal cavity - peritoneal cancer, which is assumed to have spread from the pancreas. Having had such good control with no new metastases for so long, to find how quickly that can change is quite devastating. After more than a year of feeling pretty good, tumor markers in normal range, and even the possibility of potential surgeries on the horizon, we have all been thrown back into the fear of her original diagnosis and the unknown.
So now we are back in fight mode. She told us all this isn’t the end, she needs more time and she’s not giving up. Obviously the fight is a lot harder now that her body has been under insane amounts of stress for more than 2 years. Her mind is strong but her body is weaker. We’ve been having a lot of difficult but important conversations as a family, but we are also looking at every opportunity to support the fight with anything that might supplement her treatment.
We are going to be adding some alternative therapies again, such as high doses of Vitamin C and Chinese herbs alongside her immunotherapy, which will not be covered by insurance and is quite costly. However, we believe that there is value and possibility in these additional treatments that not only will continue to fight the cancer but keep her body supported to fight the cancer. No one should have to choose between their life and going bankrupt, but we know this is a reality for so many people. She’s been really lucky to have coverage through her insurance, but it doesn’t cover it all and she’s had a lot of medical expenses over the last 2 years. Our previous Go Fund Me while she was in the hospital was such a major blessing, In fact, the amount we were able to raise supported her additional expenses for the better part of these last 2 years and we will forever be grateful.
As of October 1, she's had to change her insurance. Because she has been disabled, she had COBRA insurance but there is a limit to how long you can have that coverage. Oct 1 was that limit. That means she is now paying for all medical expenses out of pocket for the next 3 months and then it will start over again January 1.
We realize the amount we’re asking for seems like a lot but part of the reason is due to the insurance change and expense that comes with that, so we must come to you again to ask your help to keep this fight alive in us all. She has seen personally, and with other chemo buddies, that these alternative therapies can be quite effective. Her determination to live is fierce, but she has been on disability for two years which alone cannot support these additional treatments. Please consider whether you may be able to donate and if you cannot, please share this with someone else who may. We appreciate YOU!
Diagnosis: Stage 4 Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma.
What did come to her mind first and foremost was her family. She told us right away that she would not accept her prognosis and begin fighting with everything she could to LIVE. She was determined to do whatever it took to be the one who defied science and make it to the other side of the evil and aggressive statistics of the disease. Our fight as a family was driven by her realizing the power of positivity and choosing not to give up. She reached out to those around us she knew who prayed and all the most positive people in her life. As insanely strong as she is, she still knew she would need support with the mental fight.
After 4 biopsies, they were finally able to confirm her diagnosis and allow her to start chemotherapy. They initially offered her the “easy” chemo because her oncologist at that time clearly had no hope. Believing her prognosis of “6 months to live”, he wanted her last few months to be tolerable and comfortable with few side effects and “better quality of life”, but little chance of killing the cancer. Instead, she refused and went for the most effective chemo known for her particular cancer.
However, the traditional chemotherapy doses in the cancer center she was at were strong and although their thresholds for administering chemo meant she was getting really strong chemo (ideally every 2 weeks), she wasn’t able to get it that often as her blood counts were frequently too low to safely have treatment. We had her first CT scan after starting chemo in August 2018, and again we were given very little hope from a doctor who did not believe she would survive. We walked out of the room feeling scared and lacking in hope. It was a very quiet drive home.
I watched her struggle with this news. She was not happy with the results, but even more so, she felt her doctor had no hope for her, and ultimately no fight for her. None of us were going to believe she was supposed to slowly die from this without doing everything possible. Although she’d already had a second opinion earlier in her diagnosis, she decided a third opinion was needed and was hoping for someone to start thinking outside the box. She heard about an oncologist, Dr. Ben Chue, in Seattle who used metronomic dosing and did think outside the box. Metronomic dosing is a method of administering chemo weekly at lower doses (compared to the highest dose every three weeks or if your blood counts were good enough). It allows for much more tolerable side effects while continuing to attack the cancer on a more consistent basis, ultimately providing more chemotherapy in a month than high dose therapy.
After a 2 1/2 hour consultation with Dr. Chue, she knew this was where she needed to be. I remember my mom calling me and telling me about the appointment and the information he shared with them about her diagnosis and her recent CT. It was the first time I remember feeling hope since her diagnosis. Someone believed there was a way to get through this and he was going to do it with them! She started the new metronomic dose treatment right away but since she’d been having the highest maximum dose of the harshest chemo for the weeks and months prior, the side effects were catching up with her. Not realizing the toll it was taking on her body, she kept getting sicker and sicker, her body already toxic, and in November 2018 we almost lost her.
The family gathered in the ICU to discuss last wishes and I was on a plane home from Cambodia after receiving the phone call that she only had a 30% chance of ever leaving the hospital. After a touch and go week in the hospital, she finally came home. It took a whole month before she was strong enough to walk up the stairs and sleep in her own bed. She had lost over 20 pounds and was struggling to get her weight and strength back and our family had to fight even harder. She’d been too close to death but we were now confident in our new oncologist and began making the changes he suggested for her optimum health.
After her near death experience, she really began to thrive with her new oncologist and his personalized treatments for her. She also researched alternative treatments that could be effective in the death of cancer and added in whatever she could afford at any given time such as Chinese herb treatments, acupuncture, and many vitamin and nutritional supplements. Additionally, she was a candidate in a clinical trial at UCLA that showed promising results using targeted radiation. Traditional medical chemotherapy and targeted radiation, paired with alternative therapies, plus her deep desire to live fueled the belief that she could really beat this disease.
Over 2019 and into 2020, we saw her improve in mind and body and we consistently saw her tumor markers lower every month (this is a good thing!). Originally her diagnosis was said to be fully inoperable, yet with how stable she had become, discussions of possible surgical options were more likely and hope continued to rise. All CT scans up to mid 2020 had been stable with no new evidence of disease and tumor markers continued to stay in normal range.
She’s been in treatment now for 28 months and that’s really taken its toll on her. Her platelets have consistently been low and although she’s done everything she can to increase them, they remain low. If platelets are too low, chemotherapy can’t be administered safely with the risk of bleeding, both external and internal, increase substantially. Although her tumor markers have been in normal range up until very recently, her low platelet count has limiting the chemo options as many of them reduced her count even further. Options outside of surgery have become more restricted .
Unfortunately, part of the toll on her body has been abdominal swelling. For more than a year, she experienced abdominal growth, often attributed to weight gain or chemo side effects, even though she’s always said it wasn’t normal. In August 2020, the swelling paired with a new pain, one that has caused a lot of discomfort and difficulty in sitting, sleeping, and general mobility. She kept saying to us that it didn’t feel right, it wasn’t just fat. It wasn’t just chemo - something was wrong. Something needed to be done and someone needed to listen to her. With the pain has come quite a lot of abdominal distention and further growth and this prompted an early CT scan.
As often happens with cancer we were thrown a hard and painful curveball. The scan showed significant spread all throughout her abdominal cavity - peritoneal cancer, which is assumed to have spread from the pancreas. Having had such good control with no new metastases for so long, to find how quickly that can change is quite devastating. After more than a year of feeling pretty good, tumor markers in normal range, and even the possibility of potential surgeries on the horizon, we have all been thrown back into the fear of her original diagnosis and the unknown.
So now we are back in fight mode. She told us all this isn’t the end, she needs more time and she’s not giving up. Obviously the fight is a lot harder now that her body has been under insane amounts of stress for more than 2 years. Her mind is strong but her body is weaker. We’ve been having a lot of difficult but important conversations as a family, but we are also looking at every opportunity to support the fight with anything that might supplement her treatment.
We are going to be adding some alternative therapies again, such as high doses of Vitamin C and Chinese herbs alongside her immunotherapy, which will not be covered by insurance and is quite costly. However, we believe that there is value and possibility in these additional treatments that not only will continue to fight the cancer but keep her body supported to fight the cancer. No one should have to choose between their life and going bankrupt, but we know this is a reality for so many people. She’s been really lucky to have coverage through her insurance, but it doesn’t cover it all and she’s had a lot of medical expenses over the last 2 years. Our previous Go Fund Me while she was in the hospital was such a major blessing, In fact, the amount we were able to raise supported her additional expenses for the better part of these last 2 years and we will forever be grateful.
As of October 1, she's had to change her insurance. Because she has been disabled, she had COBRA insurance but there is a limit to how long you can have that coverage. Oct 1 was that limit. That means she is now paying for all medical expenses out of pocket for the next 3 months and then it will start over again January 1.
We realize the amount we’re asking for seems like a lot but part of the reason is due to the insurance change and expense that comes with that, so we must come to you again to ask your help to keep this fight alive in us all. She has seen personally, and with other chemo buddies, that these alternative therapies can be quite effective. Her determination to live is fierce, but she has been on disability for two years which alone cannot support these additional treatments. Please consider whether you may be able to donate and if you cannot, please share this with someone else who may. We appreciate YOU!
Organizer and beneficiary
Sarah Morgan
Organizer
Monroe, WA
Cindy Morgan
Beneficiary