October 24, 2025

In 8 months, we raised $25,000 in support of the Gutsche-Smith family. This feels like an amazing accomplishment, and I know it's created a lot of breathing room for Chris, Kathleen, Alice, and Oliver!!! Thank you all so very much.

I wish I could say that nothing more is needed and that Kathleen's cancer treatment is winding down. But she's still in the thick of it, heading into radiation and continued immunotherapy treatments along with surgery to reduce the scarring from her previous surgery. According to the current plan, she will also resume chemotherapy in January.

On top of all that, Kathleen is contending with complications from chemotherapy infusions including gallstones (being treated now), an inflamed gallbladder (will be treated eventually with gallbladder removal surgery), and a pulmonary embolism that was (thank goodness!) incidentally discovered and treated while she was in the hospital for other reasons. It's all more than any one person should have to handle. Thank goodness for friends and family.

All of this is to say that the support we have collectively offered has been invaluable and that the need for financial, logistical, and emotional support is ongoing. I will be reaching out with more details about a continuation of the GoFundMe drive. Until then, keep spreading the love wherever and whenever you can.

With gratitude,

Marci

August 7, 2025 Anonymous Donations Clarification

For anyone making an anonymous donation, I want to clarify that the Gutsche-Smith family will not see your name in association with your donation. They would very much like to know who to thank, so please send me (or them) a private note if you are comfortable sharing your identity with them.

August 7, 2025 Update

It has been a month since Kathleen's surgery, and the healing continues despite some lingering pain, exhaustion, and neuropathy. The physical toll of cancer treatment seems to be rivaled only by the emotional weight of such a diagnosis and the uncertainty it brings. In spite of all this, Kathleen has been making the most of feeling relatively well by getting out to the beach and spending cherished time with friends and family. She will start post-op physical therapy next week, so hopefully this will address some of the discomfort she is feeling from surgery.

The news regarding the tumor itself and the follow-up PET scan are encouraging. The following is Chris's explanation of the findings and their implications. I can't say it any better than him:

"Dr. Davidson, the medical oncologist, and Dr Flanagan, the surgical oncologist, agree that the pathology report is as good as it gets given the circumstances. They got all of the cancerous tumor out, they got clean margins, and all four sentinel lymph nodes were cancer free. This is all good news, but it is not definitive news about whether it has spread. As we have mentioned, this cancer can spread through the lymph system or the blood. Kathleen had a follow up PET-CT last Tuesday which did not show any signs of metastasis – meaning that any cancer cells present had not come together or grown to a large enough size to be detected by the scan. So that’s good news which we are very happy about. But it is also not definitive about whether there are cancer cells present or whether it will show up later. It’s a picture of a moment in time which we celebrate, and the uncertainty around the future is hard to come to peace with. We know this is an aggressive cancer that has a high rate of recurrence. We also know that it is great news that there is no evidence of cancer in the lymph system or elsewhere. So maybe Kathleen will be on the good side of the statistics. We also know she is a bad ass, and her body is super strong and capable and this far seems to be sending the message to this cancer that there is no room for it, so back off. We hold onto these things to buoy us in the face of uncertainty."

The next step will be a continuation of chemotherapy coupled with the immunotherapy drug Pembro, followed by radiation and Pembro. The 12-week chemo cycle will start on August 13 and end on October 13.

This is a lot to digest, but the take-home message is to please keep pouring on the love and offering financial, emotional, and logistical support to the Gutsche-Smith family for the foreseeable future.

July 24, 2025 Update

Kathleen's surgery on July 7th went well other than some uncomfortable reactions to pain medications and the need to return to Seattle for some minor - though exhausting - medical appointments.

The tumor was removed completely with clear margins, and there is no indication that cancer has spread to the surrounding lymph nodes. This is super encouraging news! And, although chemotherapy did not perform the function of shrinking the tumor, it does appear to have been killing it from the inside out. Kathleen will have a PET scan soon to detect any spread of seed cells in other parts of her body. The next steps in treatment will depend on the results of this PET scan and further assessments and conversations with the medical oncologist.

In the meantime, Chris, Kathleen, Alice, and Oliver continue to embrace and pursue their passions for adventure, community, nature, laughter, equity, family, and peace. Kathleen is recovering well from her surgery and had a great birthday with friends and family. I know she feels the love and gratitude we all have for her and that any acts of appreciation and support resonate deeply with her. Thank you for all that you do for the Gutsche-Smith family!

June 26, 2025 Update

The following update was shared by Kathleen on the Lotsa Helping Hands community page set up by her sister. Needless to say, the stresses and expenses are accumulating for the Gutsche-Smith family, and your support - whether material, emotional, or spiritual - continues to be critically important for them. Please keep reaching out with your love and offerings. And please share this GoFundMe far and wide to maximize support for this beautiful family!

From Kathleen:

In the spirit of Heraclitus (“The only constant in life is change.”) and Bob Dylan (“The times they are a-changin’”), a lot has changed for us in the last two weeks. [T]he plan was to do an ultrasound around the mid-way mark of this first 12-week cycle to measure the tumor. This was needed in my case, because based on manual feel I and my care team could not discern that the tumor was smaller or softer – two things we would hope for at this stage. Unfortunately, the ultrasound showed that the tumor has grown – quite a bit since the first ultrasound back in early March and since the PET Scan (the last diagnostic measurements) in mid-April. Sadly, there is no universe where this is good news. For a short while I was holding onto the hope it was larger because of pseudo-progression - a phenomenon that can happen with immunotherapy in which there is an influx of immune cells into the tumor causing inflammation and a temporary increase in tumor size. According to my doctors, this is a thing, but it is unlikely in my case based on how the tumor looks in ultrasound and how far into treatment I am (they say it would have come and gone by now). So, we are pivoting!

After much discussion, the decision has been made to proceed to surgery as quickly as possible. Surgery is scheduled for July 7th. My surgeon (who I think is amazing) made it very clear multiple times that I need to proceed with the most straightforward surgery that brings the fewest risks of complications and the quickest healing time so that I can get back into systemic therapy (meaning chemo and/or radiation) as quickly as possible to have the greatest chance of beating this thing. This was/is very scary and sobering, but also a very clear lens by which to make decisions.

I will need about 4 to 6 weeks to recover from surgery before starting on the next phase of systemic treatment. That will give us plenty of time to figure out what that next phase is. The good news in removing the tumor is that they will be able to run lots of tests on it and the non-mass enhancements to determine exactly what kinds of cancer are there, whether the chemo was effective on any of them, the characteristics of the cells, etc. All of this will be used to determine the best path forward with systemic treatment.

March, 2025

As you may know, our dear friend Kathleen was recently diagnosed with triple negative metaplastic breast cancer. Her tentative treatment plan will take about a year and includes chemotherapy, immunotherapy, surgery, and radiation with recovery periods built into each phase of treatment. This healing process will take a tremendous toll on the Gutsche-Smith family. Fortunately, they have a broad network of friends and family who love them and will provide day-to-day support for things like meals, shopping, laundry, and cleaning. But medical expenses coupled with time away from work will pose some serious financial challenges for them, and our hope is to provide them with peace of mind that they can cover all of their expenses.

Kathleen has been the primary breadwinner for her family and was scheduled to start a new job in early April. This is obviously not happening which means that, not only do they not have her income, but they don't have employer paid health insurance either. They are grateful to have health insurance at all, but the cost is $2,000 per month and doesn’t cover all the medical costs they are already accruing. So they are bracing for a long haul of creative financing and humble requests for assistance.

If you are able to make a donation to this GoFundMe for the Gutsche-Smith family, that would be amazing! The initial goal of $25,000 would go a long way toward paying for out-of-pocket medical costs. I will update this site as Kathleen's treatment progresses and may increase the goal if it becomes necessary.

For those who are unable to contribute financially, Kathleen and her family want you to know that they are grateful for the gift of kindness and love. They know that times are hard for lots of folks right now and want to stress that no one should feel obligated to give in this way.

Thank you for your support, in whatever form you can offer it. It means so much to Kathleen, Chris, Alice, and Oliver.