Aubrey’s story

Aubrey & her family (husband Curt & daughters Carden & Hadley) live in Bayfield, CO. Anyone who has met Aubrey knows she brings fun and joy everyplace she goes and represents everything that is good in the world with her sense of humor (including very corny jokes), kindness, loyalty, and high integrity.

On August 1st, Aubrey was diagnosed with Invasive Lobular Carcinoma breast cancer in her left breast. While initially thinking it was contained to one breast and the other was healthy, a breast MRI and subsequent biopsies revealed she also has Invasive Ductal Carcinoma breast cancer in her right breast.

It’s not common to have different types of breast cancer, but Aubrey’s always loved being unique and an overachiever.

Now that many medical appointments, consultations, and second opinions have taken place, Aubrey and her care team have decided her best course of action is to have a double mastectomy at Mayo Clinic in Arizona in November. Depending on her surgery and what is discovered in her lymph nodes will determine if she needs to do chemo or radiation. Her reconstructive surgery will also take place in Scottsdale, and while it is possible it could take place the same day as her mastectomy, it most likely will be scheduled a couple of months afterwards.

Here’s where she and her family could use help, as this medical journey is not cheap, even with insurance as I’m sure you can imagine, because insurance doesn’t cover all of the unknown and unanticipated requests, nor travel expenses to her care team.

Aubs and her family will be traveling to Scottsdale for the surgery, and staying there two weeks while she’s not allowed to travel. They most likely will have to do a similar trip a second time a couple of months later for her reconstructive surgery.

Some of their upcoming known expenses include:

Their family of four will be traveling to Arizona in Nov where they will need lodging for two weeks, medical costs, prescription costs, pay to board their animals, flights, gas money, and then the same expenses again a couple of months later when she goes back for the reconstructive surgery. All of these are just the immediate known expenses too, so we know there will be additional costs and just general everyday expenses that while usually accounted for will now be spoken for to pay for her treatment.

All of this to say, that nobody is financially prepared for cancer, and the Gillespie family could sure use help, please, so their worries and anxieties over Aubrey’s health and recovery aren’t compounded by the financial stress and burdens this diagnosis has placed on them as well.

As a special thank you, we thought you should be treated to one of Aubrey’s all-time favorite jokes:

“What did the fish say when it the wall?”

“Dam!”

I know. The joke is bad. Please don’t let that discourage you from helping.

To steal a quote from Aubrey’s best friend, we hope this support shows that we are collectively standing with her “in suits of armor and streaks of mascara.” Love you, Aubrey