Collette’s Breast Cancer & Liver Disease Fight

After serving as a caregiver all her life, my beautiful wife Collette needs to have fulltime care given to her. She has spent two months at the Mayo clinic caring for her former husband, cared for her oldest son with Crohn's Disease, and just last year completed a seven year long struggle with her youngest son’s HCM heart disease before a one month trip with him for open heart surgery to Salt Lake Children’s hospital in 2022.

Now she needs a caregiver and with your help, that will be my role, mission and honor as her husband.

After never being sick and having to spend time herself in the hospital, Collette began feeling extremely ill in late October. Finally after weeks of not being able to sleep, due to excessive itching internally and yellowing of her skin, we went to the doctor and she was diagnosed with liver disease and an added surprise of breast cancer a week before this Thanksgiving.

This was a shock to me and her family for someone who has never been sick, and more importantly, was always in the hospital and at home serving others as a caregiver.

Even though she’s a natural person, we were told that she needed to start chemotherapy immediately. That first round of chemotherapy seemed to deplete her immune system and allowed a painful kidney infection to take hold, which led us to the Emergency Room on Dec. 15. After being admitted that night, we were told the next morning that she now had a Sepsis blood infection.

After 12 grueling days fighting Sepsis with multiple antibiotics, Collette was finally strong enough to go home on Dec. 26. During that time we spent my birthday (Dec.21), our 8th anniversary (Dec. 23) and Christmas in the hospital, all without seeing her children at all.

We were told that seven more days of IV antibiotics would kill the Sepsis infection and we completed those doses yesterday on Jan. 2.

After fighting Sepsis, our hope is that she can regain the strength she needs to now fight the breast cancer and liver disease attacking her body so she can return to the healthy strong woman we know and love.

I have used all of my vacation time and sick leave over the five weeks leading up to our hospital stay and I am now on FMLA without pay for 12 weeks or more.

I’m going to be there for my wife as her fulltime caregiver as long as is needed but I need your help.

The items we’ve had to purchase to ease her time at home from a walker to a wheelchair, portable toilet, blood pressure device, building a wheelchair ramp, numerous prescriptions and over the counter medications combined with expensive cancer medications have drained our savings.

For every $160 donated you will not only cover a day of my salary, but you will allow me to be with my wife another day, still allow us to pay our bills, and purchase the immediate needed items for her fight with breast cancer and liver disease.

Any money over our immediate goal that allows me to be with her up to the next six months and fight the breast cancer and liver disease will help us down the road with the mounting hospital bills.

Those bills include an Emergency Room visit, her 12 day stay to fight Sepsis and all the procedures, blood culture tests, lab work, blood transfusions, white blood cell shots, blood platelet transfusions, cat scans, MRI’s, multiple ultra sounds, three biopsies, a nuclear bone scan, IV drugs and fluids plus numerous appointments with doctors and specialists.

Will you please support her fight and my wish to be there by her side throughout every moment during the toughest time in her life? My wife Collette is the strongest person I know, but she needs me and I want to be with her every day.

This is my wish for 2024 for all the souls out there in addition to your prayers.

Thank you for taking the time to read Collette’s story and I pray that God blesses you and your family with good health and happiness.

Happy New Year!

Sincerely Yours,

Lou & Collette Antoine, our three children and extended family members.