Pilsy's Cancer Support Fundraiser - medical bills and living

Our beautiful friend Pilar & her little family need our help.

Pilar has been diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma in her hip and a separate cancer in her breast. As some of you may know, Pilar survived cancer when she was 19 which required months of chemotherapy and her hip to be replaced. She is currently processing having to go through this journey once again.

The lymphoma in her hip is an aggressive cancer and this needs to be tackled first. She is embarking on a journey of multiple rounds of chemotherapy and then a stem cell transplant which will require a lengthy hospital stay in an isolation ward due to the vulnerability of her immune system while this procedure is undertaken. Then it will be time to tackle the breast cancer with surgery and radiation therapy. This is a very steep and long mountain to climb, likely to continue until mid next year. Pilar and the family will be bunkering down and won’t be particularly social due to how tired and unwell Pilar will be coupled with a significantly compromised immune system.

This all means that Pilar will not be able to perform all her usual mother and wife magic; or work while she focuses on beating this cancer with everything she has got.

Her husband Nick will need to significantly reduce his work hours to manage running the home, caring for Pilar and looking after their 12-year-old son Parker who has just started high school.

The cost of all this extra support as well as a heavily reduced income will be significant, therefore we are reaching out to their community far and wide with an option to help in a way that will assist them to afford the support they really need. We understand the current financial climate is challenging but if you can help out with a donation of any size it would be deeply appreciated.

Although flowers and meals are such a beautiful way of showing that you care, there are some tricky dietary requirements and financial support no matter how small would be much more beneficial to help them through this time.

Any of you who know and love Pilar would understand she’s very uncomfortable asking for assistance. She is usually the one doing the giving. She’s kind and generous and if you are lucky to call her a friend you know just how special she is. She’s also funny, creative, quirky and her smile lights up a room. We need more people like her in this world. She deserves any help we can offer her at this time.

As you can imagine, communicating with everyone directly will be a full-time job and Pilar needs to focus on healing and getting through each day, so for updates on Pilar's journey you can join the Instagram page AND/OR if you would like to offer practical help (e.g running errands, taking Parker out on an adventure, walking the dog, taking Pilar to appointments etc), please download the Gather My Crew app and press the 'Contact' button on this page to request the invite from Bonnie or Lynn.

**To anyone who may know her son Parker we ask that you be aware of talking about Pilar’s situation in front of your children. If you see Pilar and Nick please refrain from discussing the situation in front of Parker. They are ensuring he only knows the bare minimum at this stage and they are working hard at keeping his anxiety and stress low. It would be deeply appreciated if you could help to keep their very loved and sensitive son feeling positive**

** Pilar and the family are referring to her illness as Lymphoma rather than ‘cancer’ because of the associated negativity, death and ghastly connotations that the word ‘cancer’ can evoke.

We thank you for your support and digging deep to help our wonderful Pilar and her little fam.