Hello, my name is Tabatha Russell and I'm trying to help one of my best friends during this difficult time. Her daughter, Heather Bennett, has been battling malignant melanoma and is about to travel to City of Hope next Sunday, June 15th, for a 5-week span for treatment. At which time, her mother, Dawn Bennett, will not be working and incurring extra expenses. Hoping to help relieve some of the financial stress for my friend during this time. Please read more below for the details.....

Heather moved away to pursue her dream and get her Master's in Theater at UC Irvine in August 2019. Heather had switched to the school’s insurance in September 2019 since she was a student. She went to the beach and ended up tripping over a rock and stubbed the bottom of her right big toe at the beginning of 2021 during COVID. Heather’s toe wasn’t getting any better after a few weeks. After she was doing all the proper steps to take care of it, she went to the Student Health Center on campus. They bandaged it up and said it should be better in a few weeks. It wasn’t getting better, so she went back to the Health Center, and they said that since she was overweight, they figured she had diabetes. They did all the normal tests, and her tests came back that she didn’t have diabetes, and it must just be from her walking on it. That summer, during school break, she had taken a job as a Stage Manager in Clinton, Iowa, where she was doing wound care herself, keeping it dry and clean. At that point, it was still flat, developed a scab, and wasn’t hurting, so she thought it was getting better. When she returned to school, she went back to Student Health because it still wasn’t completely healed. They did more diabetes tests, and again, tests were normal. They said it must be because she’s walking on it and had her wear a walking boot. They gave her a referral to see a podiatrist, which was a six-month wait. During the wait, it started to hurt and grow a nasty-looking sore on the outside of the toe. When she did get in to see the doctor, he did a biopsy, and it came back as malignant melanoma. Because she graduated in May 2022, she lost her insurance in September 2022 and jumped back on Kaiser in November 2022. They amputated her right big toe and took a huge mass in her right inner thigh with 10 lymph nodes, and the cancer was already in 8 of the lymph nodes. She started immunotherapy in January 2023, and it failed, so they moved to chemo. Heather was able to pursue her dream while going through chemo and got a teaching job at the local college in Irvine as a theater teacher. She loved her job and teaching students. In November 2024, Heather started to have complications from the cancer. She started to have a lot of pain in her right shoulder, was in constant pain, and lost mobility in her arm. They determined that the chemo wasn’t working any longer, and they stopped the chemo on December 9, 2024. She had to move back home with her parents (mom and stepdad) at the end of December because she could no longer live by herself. The cancer has pretty much destroyed her body. The cancer is literally all over her body; it’s in her spine, muscles, bones, and in almost all her organs, with the exception of her brain, which she had an MRI done on Sunday, June 8th, and she will get the results back in a couple of days. Heather has been approved for the City of Hope for a new FDA-approved treatment called TIL. She went to COH in March 2025 for the removal of a tumor to start the first part of the process, and it failed. She had to start all over at the end of April 2025, which required a lot of additional trips back and forth from Anaheim, CA, for testing that is required for the treatment. Fast forward to now, she actually has a start date. PRAISE THE LORD!! Heather will be going down to COH on June 16th, where she will be admitted and will be in the hospital for two weeks in the ICU because doing this treatment isn’t without risk. She could have a heart attack, among other risks, at any point during the treatment. The first week, they will give her very strong chemo, where she will lose all her hair in two days. It will literally be hell on her and her body. The second week, they will be putting her T-cells back into her body, and the hope is that the T-cells will start doing their job and kill the cancer cells. Heather will have to stay at the COH hotel for three weeks after they release her from the hospital because they need to monitor her for the next three weeks for any complications. Her mom, Dawn, will be going down with her and will be with her the entire five weeks that is required for the treatment. With that, her mom still works full-time, and she has put in for Paid Family Leave. However, it can be four weeks before she gets paid for the first week off. Dawn will have expenses while there with Heather as far as food and gas back and forth to and from the hospital. Dawn will have her monthly bills at home while she is down with Heather. There is a program that is paying for her mother to stay in a hotel while Heather is in the hospital. Heather has a bucket list that she would like to fulfill after treatment if it is possible. Her two wishes are a cruise and a camping trip in the mountains with all her family. This treatment is Heather’s only hope, and please pray it works!