My wife Brittany is sick. It took a long time to diagnose the cause of the massively enlarged lymph nodes in her neck. Doctor after doctor, biopsies, core samples, ultrasounds, endless tests, surgery. The fear and frustration we felt watching them grow without any answers was indescribable. Finally, Mayo Clinic experts identified something no one expected, and few have heard of: pseudomyogenic hemangioendothelioma with EGFL7-FOSB fusion. Cancer, an ultra-rare sarcoma. She is the third documented case with EGFL7-FOSB fusion, which is believed to make it more aggressive, and the first woman. She is 35.

PET scans revealed that the lymph nodes (a dozen of them, the largest ones golf-ball-sized, three removed so far) are metastatic. The origin point is in her head, dead center beneath her brain.

Mayo is going to operate in the next 4-6 weeks [UPDATE: The tumors are out! It was intense. Surgical notes at the end]. The plan is to follow this with proton beam radiation, once a day, every weekday, for almost two months. We can go home on the weekends. We will need to stay in Rochester during the week. We can't stay at the Hope Lodge because we have a pet who needs twice-daily medication. Our beloved cat Fortune is already costing us a fortune in ongoing vet bills for feline triaditis, which couldn't be happening at a worse time. Mayo can get us a patient rate in a partner hotel, but it's going to be a significant cost, and a lot of time I won't be able to work. I'm hoping to apply for paid leave, but whatever happens, this is going to be expensive. This is absolutely dominating our lives. It's been awful to see this affect her energy, her mental health, and her self-esteem; I had to use an old photo, she hasn't wanted to take one of herself in a long time.

Brittany is incredible. She is so smart, and so talented, and so good, and so young. She's an artist and a wonderful writer. She loves bubble tea and scary movies. She sings little songs to our cats. You can see her hair from a block away. I'll always remember the first time I did, from a bus, traveling across the country to visit her after falling in love with each other's blogs and then each other in 2012. I thought she was catfishing me at first. I thought she was too good to be true; too cool, too smart, too funny, far too beautiful. But she's real. She's the love of my life.

Brittany has been too sick to work for a long time. I work one full-time job as a home health PCA, and another in a facility (assisted living, memory care, and hospice). I'm grateful that the patient care skills I've learned are helping me take care of her.

We have already been through so much. We've both had to work hard for our life together, far away from other family, battling ongoing health problems. It's just us and the cats in a little apartment, but we don't need much. We don't even have a car (on purpose). We just need to find a way to cover rent and expenses while Brittany recovers.

This cancer is too rare for any confident prognosis. I have to believe she'll recover.

Thank you for reading our story. Please help us if you can.