
Donna's Fight against Pancreatic Cancer
Donation protected
My mother Donna had a gall bladder blockage in July that required emergency surgery. In the process, it was discovered the cause was a very large pancreatic tumor. She had two subsequent surgeries to insert stents and was hospitalized yet again after that with a blood infection. Once she was finally stable and the gall bladder issue was fixed, she began an aggressive chemo treatment at Baystate Hospital in Springfield, MA, with support from Dana Farber. The chemo has made her absolutely sick all the time. She has lost a tremendous amount of weight and has had a very hard time eating. She was hospitalized yet again last week for exhaustion, dehydration, and low potassium. She is fighting as hard as she can and is trying her best to keep her spirits up, but this has been very rough on her. She has a few more rounds of chemo to go over the next two months. Once it's complete, they will perform a scan to see if the tumor has shrunk. If it has, they will try to operate to remove it, and potentially cure her. If it hasn't, there is nothing more to be done, and we will have to make her end of life plans.
My mother really wants to be here for her two grandkids (my niece and nephew), who are 2 1/2 and 3. She babysat them all the time before she got sick. They've been an immense joy to her the last few years. She says she is fighting hardest for them. We lost my stepdad to prostate cancer last year after a 7 year battle. My mother took care of him the entire time. She drove him to the hospital in Boston countless times. It took a lot out of her. She was obviously emotionally and physically exhausted afterwards. But she has always been a generous, giving person. She had a lifelong career as a nurse. She worked in the ER, as a director at nursing homes, and as a traveling nurse. She was also an EMT, EMT instructor, and CPR instructor. When she was young, she volunteered with the local fire department. Then, with two colleagues, she founded a volunteer ambulance service in our town. She ran it for 25 years until it was replaced by a paid service and all of its assets were donated to charities (such as the American Red Cross). During all those years, she saved dozens of lives. She performed CPR on heart attack victims, sometimes for an hour or more. She pulled people from car wrecks. She delivered multiple babies. She was often the first on the scene to motorcycle accidents, house fires, lumber accidents, and shootings. She never hesitated. Not once. To this day, she still receives cards from people thanking her for saving their lives 30 years ago.
We are asking for help now with the expenses we're incurring from all her medical procedures. Fortunately, she still has decent insurance through my stepdad's old plan. But it doesn't cover the gas to go back and forth for her treatments, her pills that cost hundreds of dollars, or the special food I've been having to order to try to keep her eating something (protein gelatin, for example). I lost my job in July, and I've found a new one that will allow me the flexibility to keep taking care of her and bringing her to all her appointments. But it doesn't start for 4-6 weeks, after the paperwork is all approved. My mother and I have burned through all our savings. She only has social security for income. I have temporarily moved in with her and can cover the house bills once my new job begins, but in the meantime, we need a little help. So I'm kindly asking for anything you can spare so she doesn't have to worry about anything for the next couple months. Thank you so, so much. -Aidan
Organizer
Aidan Clement
Organizer
Pittsfield, MA