Help Kati Verde Fight Cancer After Losses

Dear friends, family, and kind hearts,

My name is Samantha and I’m reaching out to share the story of a truly special person, my best friend Kati Verde. If you ever had the pleasure of meeting Kati, you know she is generous, very sarcastic with a strange sense of humor, but also an extremely loving and caring person. She would give the shirt off her back or share a laugh when it’s needed.

The past year and a half have been extremely hard on Kati. She lost her dad Rick and her husband Dom (Dozer) in 2023, and her brother Kevin in 2024.

December marked 1 year since Dom has passed. As if that wasn’t hard enough, Kati went on December 16 for a routine colonoscopy. The doctors were unable to complete the colonoscopy as they found a blockage inside the sigmoid part of the colon. A biopsy was done due to the blockage.

Kati was scheduled for a CAT scan on Monday, December 23. From there, we found out it was Stage 2 Colorectal Adenocarcinoma and would require surgery to have it removed. Her visit with the surgeon was scheduled for Tuesday, December 24 (Christmas Eve).

The meeting with the surgeon went very well. He explained that Kati had a 5 cm mass in the sigmoid part of the colon as well as .09 cm in her lymph nodes. The doctor explained that the cancer had not been found anywhere else in Kati’s body, which was the best-case scenario with this type of cancer. The doctor had an opening in his schedule for Friday, January 3, so her surgery was scheduled.

The surgery was a success. They removed the sigmoid part of the colon and a little more along with 3 lymph nodes. The lymph nodes were sent to pathology for further testing. She stayed in the hospital for 4 days. Since the surgery, Kati has been healing at home. I go to her house every morning at 5:30 am with a coffee to give her a shot so she doesn’t get blood clots. Boy, is she sick of these shots. Good thing Sunday is the last day that she needs them.

Kati just met with her oncologist on Wednesday, January 22. She was not prepared to get the results of pathology as she had been told it would be a couple more weeks. The oncologist told her the lymph nodes contained some cancer cells. Out of 28 lymph nodes, 12 in total have a spots, 3 of which were removed during her surgery. It was determined that she has Stage 2A invasive colorectal adenocarcinoma and would require chemotherapy. As you can imagine, Kati was not prepared for this news. She took it pretty hard. Kati has not quite wrapped her head around all of this yet as it came about so fast. On January 31st, she has another appointment with the oncologist where he will go over the treatment plan, which will include chemotherapy pills. Kati will be required to take them twice a day for 2 weeks on and 1 week off for the next 6 months to start.

Kati has a long road ahead of her. Any contribution, big or small, will make a huge difference in helping ease some financial burden. The wish is for Kati to continue to focus on her healing. If you are unable to donate, please say a prayer for Kati or even sharing this page. It would mean the world.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your kindness and support during this difficult time.