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Hello, my name is Lawrence Turner. Since I married my wife, Christine, twenty-two years ago, it has been clear that her calling is with children. For most of our marriage, she has been a stay at home mom, raising our son and three daughters. We have had many opportunities to teach small children and it has always amazed me how she can get even the rowdiest ones to behave. Our youngest daughter is now in high school so, after eighteen years staying at home, Christine went back into the workforce and for two to three hours each weekday, became 'Mrs. T' the lunch time playground assistant at Jemtegaard, one of the middle schools in the small city of Washougal Washington.
Christine started working with children ranging in age from eleven to thirteen. While some people working with children in this difficult age range would go out demanding respect, she went out and earned it. You could not pay me enough to work with this age group, but Christine absolutely loves these kids. At the close of every school year, she was sad when the eighth graders would leave middle school and go to high school. And the amazing thing to me was even the roughest teen boys were sad to leave and not see her anymore. Unfortunately, for this school year, we moved from Washington to the neighboring state of Oregon. Although her commute went from five minutes to about an hour each way, she loved the kids and her job so much, she made the drive to Washington and back every weekday.
About ten months ago, Christine started to notice some disturbing things. She was having a hard time staying awake during her commute and had to pause on her way up the stairs, at the school, to catch her breath. She set up an appointment with her doctor to see if this was caused by low vitamin levels. The doctor had her do some blood work and when the results came back, her doctor called her up and asked her to go to the Emergency Room right away because her iron levels were critically low. At the ER they found out that she had been bleeding for a while and they found the cause of the bleeding; the blood was coming from a tumor in her colon. A Computerized Tomography (CT) scan found masses in her liver and on one of her lungs. The diagnosis was terrifying: stage four metastatic colon cancer.
The first step in fighting the cancer was to remove the tumor in Christine’s colon. We found an oncologist and set up a date for the operation. However, the cancer seemed to react to being discovered. The tumor started constricting her bowls and we ended up having to do an emergency operation to get it removed. As soon as she was healed enough, her oncologist started her on chemotherapy.
Christine turned out to be hypersensitive to the chemo. On the first night, she woke up gasping for air because the nerves in her lungs were partially paralyzed. She has had many sleepless nights screaming and crying because the chemo turns to acid as it leaves her body creating open wounds in her rectum. We have spent thousands of dollars for treatments as we try to give her a comfortable night’s sleep. Our insurance will not pay for an operation to heal her fissures and lessen her dependance on painkillers. Please help me get Christine the lifesaving treatments she needs.
I have lost my job because I had to take time to care for Christine. When you donate to our cause, you will help us pay for the operation she needs. You will also help us pay to keep our house and the utilities going. As soon as we can get the money for the operation, we can get it scheduled. If you do not want to have GoFundMe take a percentage of your donation, you can give directly to my Venmo account: @Lawrence-Turner-9. Thank you for taking the time to get to know my family and thank you for your life saving donation.
Christine started working with children ranging in age from eleven to thirteen. While some people working with children in this difficult age range would go out demanding respect, she went out and earned it. You could not pay me enough to work with this age group, but Christine absolutely loves these kids. At the close of every school year, she was sad when the eighth graders would leave middle school and go to high school. And the amazing thing to me was even the roughest teen boys were sad to leave and not see her anymore. Unfortunately, for this school year, we moved from Washington to the neighboring state of Oregon. Although her commute went from five minutes to about an hour each way, she loved the kids and her job so much, she made the drive to Washington and back every weekday.
About ten months ago, Christine started to notice some disturbing things. She was having a hard time staying awake during her commute and had to pause on her way up the stairs, at the school, to catch her breath. She set up an appointment with her doctor to see if this was caused by low vitamin levels. The doctor had her do some blood work and when the results came back, her doctor called her up and asked her to go to the Emergency Room right away because her iron levels were critically low. At the ER they found out that she had been bleeding for a while and they found the cause of the bleeding; the blood was coming from a tumor in her colon. A Computerized Tomography (CT) scan found masses in her liver and on one of her lungs. The diagnosis was terrifying: stage four metastatic colon cancer.
The first step in fighting the cancer was to remove the tumor in Christine’s colon. We found an oncologist and set up a date for the operation. However, the cancer seemed to react to being discovered. The tumor started constricting her bowls and we ended up having to do an emergency operation to get it removed. As soon as she was healed enough, her oncologist started her on chemotherapy.
Christine turned out to be hypersensitive to the chemo. On the first night, she woke up gasping for air because the nerves in her lungs were partially paralyzed. She has had many sleepless nights screaming and crying because the chemo turns to acid as it leaves her body creating open wounds in her rectum. We have spent thousands of dollars for treatments as we try to give her a comfortable night’s sleep. Our insurance will not pay for an operation to heal her fissures and lessen her dependance on painkillers. Please help me get Christine the lifesaving treatments she needs.
I have lost my job because I had to take time to care for Christine. When you donate to our cause, you will help us pay for the operation she needs. You will also help us pay to keep our house and the utilities going. As soon as we can get the money for the operation, we can get it scheduled. If you do not want to have GoFundMe take a percentage of your donation, you can give directly to my Venmo account: @Lawrence-Turner-9. Thank you for taking the time to get to know my family and thank you for your life saving donation.