Help Hannah Hodges BEAT spinal cord CANCER

Hello Internet! My name is Hannah. I’m a 28 year old paramedic and ESL teacher from Michigan. As some of you may know, I have been experiencing increasingly severe and at times debilitating back pain over the past year. As a result of not having health insurance last year, being a “tough” paramedic, and being an all-around curmudgeon, I toughed out the pain until 2020. ——-- While I was in New York City helping the ambulance services there deal with the COVID 19 response, I finally got an MRI which showed a nearly 7cm tumor on my spinal cord, which the doctors have tentatively named a myxopapillary ependymoma. ——— The tumor is taking up 99.5% of my spinal canal, according to my neurosurgeon. I was in complete shock and I had no idea what to do. I continued to work for several more days and even finished my final exams and graduated from GVSU with my Bachelor’s in Biology during this time. In the weeks since my diagnosis, I have had MRI’s of the rest of my spine and my brain, the results of which are still pending. ——— I am scheduled to have surgery to remove the tumor this Saturday at the University of Michigan, and this will require time off work, physical therapy, travel expenses, possible radiation, and medical equipment purchases. Any money we could raise to help my family and I would be so incredibly appreciated!