Cambria Native Firefighter Battling Cancer

Cambria Native Wendy Watkins, Cal Fire Firefighter, Still Needs Our Help 

UPDATE: November 3, 2020:  Wendy has finally conceded that taking time off from her firefighting duties for Cal Fire is necessary.   She continued to work tirelessly for several months while undergoing grueling chemotherapy treatments.  She has a CT and surgery coming up in about a month, and radiation and more chemo as well.  Giving her little body some time to rest up for what's to come is a fantastic idea, and her family is SO glad she has finally decided to do that.  Her spirits are good (most of the time), but she does have her days of feeling pretty crappy and feeling guilty, and missing being on the fire line with her Cal Fire brothers and sisters.  I just saw her today and in spite of being utterly exhausted, she looks absolutely beautiful!

Many of you will remember my niece, Wendy, from a benefit held at Village Lumber in Cambria in 1990 when she was 3, while she was under treatment for leukemia at Stanford Children's Hospital.  Cambria really stepped up and the funds were well spent: She was cured!! What came out of her experience was a need to give back to the community -- to help others. She found that firefighting was her calling, and she loves her job. (The media fire photo is of her during the Ranch Fire).

She will now have to give up the career that means everything to her, at least for a time, to again go to battle against this catastrophic illness. 

Please continue to give whatever you can. Some of her family still lives in Cambria;  her parents and several aunts (including me) and uncles live in Paso Robles, but were all Cambrians for a very long time! We lost her Uncle Vic Tinker to lung cancer in February; Cambrians (and others) really showed what they were made of while he was sick. Please, please do the same for his niece. If anyone wants to help but is hesitant about doing so through the internet and/or does not want to use this platform, you may send a check made out directly to Wendy L. Watkins.  Please address the envelope to me, Linda Tinker, 21 Via Santa Barbara, Paso Robles, CA 93446 --  but be sure to make the check out directly  to Wendy L. Watkins!  Thanks everyone so VERY much for your help and support already, and in the future.  We want to make sure Wendy HAS a very long, productive, happy future, and you've all helped to make that a real possibility.

UPDATE: July 20, 2020:  The CT scan came back clear regarding any spread of disease!!!! The PET and MRI would be better, but we'll take it for now!  Wendy is in the infusion room now, being administered the first round of the new medication, and says she will be having chemo every 3 weeks instead of weekly, for now.  GOD BLESS THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY!!!!! And particularly, God bless all those who have donated and prayed for her recovery.  Thank you all so much!

UPDATE:  July 16, 2020, the manufacturer of the medication Wendy and her oncologist were begging Anthem to cover  offered to provide the medication at a reduced cost since Anthem will not cover it!  We can now actually GET the medication!  (One 100 mg IV administration is over $3,000.00 and she will require it probably weekly until December). On the other hand, Anthem still refuses coverage for that AND for a PET scan, which is vital, and costly.  Who knew Big Pharma had more heart and compassion than the insurance company we pay so dearly for?  Of course, there are other expenses that will have to be covered as well, both related to her treatment and to her ability to live and function with any sort of normalcy, particularly when the time comes that she can no longer be on the fire line for a time as one of our local favorite Cal Fire firefighters.  She is muscling it out right now, even through two tough rounds of chemo already, but those of us who know her well know she cannot keep going at this level for much longer.  We've been trying to talk her into taking it easy for weeks; the stubbornness we want to spank her for is also the stubbornness that will get her through this!