Cathy Gonzalez

Cathy is a 50-year-old mother of two. She was blessed with 24 years of marriage to her one true love only to lose him to cancer. She is now fighting her own battle with cancer.
Cathy has served as an educator for the last 23 years. She first served 8 years as a high school Spanish teacher at Wapato High School. She has spent the last 15 years of her career as an Assistant Principal for the Yakima School District, 13 of those years at Davis High School making dear, lifelong friends.
Welcome to Cathy’s gofundme page. This past month has been extremely difficult on Cathy and her family. Following a hysterectomy in June of 2015 Cathy was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer, Leiomyosarcoma, an aggressive soft tissue sarcoma. She spent roughly 9 months in chemotherapy following her diagnosis. This would be a hardship for any of us but was especially hard on Cathy having just lost her husband in January of 2014 to colon cancer. Following Cathy’s initial diagnosis and treatments she faithfully underwent CT scans every 4 months to confirm the cancer had not returned.
On October 6th doctors discovered a large mass in Cathy’s abdomen. An emergency CT scan showed a football-sized tumor. On October 13th doctors at UW attempted to remove the tumor surgically. Unfortunately, due to excessive blood loss, doctors were not able to remove the entire tumor.
Three weeks later, during a meeting with her doctors to discuss further treatment, Cathy was instead admitted back into the hospital. Cathy was experiencing difficulty in breathing and swelling in her legs. Doctors subsequently removed 750mL of fluid from her lungs and about 2.5 liters from her stomach. Cathy is currently at UW Medical Center healing and gathering strength in preparation for additional chemotherapy treatments to shrink the tumor with the hope that it can be fully removed.
Your support, love, thoughts, and prayers have been truly appreciated and given Cathy the strength she needs on this journey. This gofundme campaign was established to lessen the financial burden on Cathy and her family so they can focus on what is most important, providing Cathy with the best possible medical care. Donations will go towards medical bills, copays, and lost work time. Your donation will provide peace of mind to Cathy and her family while on this journey. Cathy and her family thank you in advance for your generous donation and ask that you join them in keeping Cathy in your thoughts and prayers as she once again fights this battle with cancer.