I never thought I’d be the person writing a GoFundMe — or opening up this much about something so personal, vulnerable, and honestly overwhelming.

But I've always been rooted in community, and so much of what I’ve built is based on connection — on people knowing me, and not just my work at Burns Florist. So it feels right to let you in on what this past year has really looked like, why I haven’t been as present, why the doors may have been closed when you stopped by, or why your calls may have gone to voicemail.

And for the first time in my life, I’m asking for help.

Last April, I noticed a lump on the side of my neck. I kept an eye on it at first, hoping it was nothing. By June, it had doubled in size. What followed were months of CT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, referrals, waiting, and trying to get answers without actually getting any. In September, I finally saw an ENT who took a fine needle aspiration sample. It came back inconclusive, was sent to UCSF for review, and was initially thought to be something else entirely. Then came the PET scan.

Not only did the mass in my neck light up, but another area was even more concerning — the back of my throat at the base of my tongue.

On November 17th, I went under for a biopsy of the tongue and tonsil area. On December 1st, twenty-four days before Christmas, I got the call that changed everything: Stage 2 head and neck cancer, with spread to my lymph nodes.

Stage 2 may not sound dramatic to everyone else, but when you hear the word cancer at 37, it changes everything. Especially knowing my mother's brother died from cancer at 38. How could this happen to me?

Then I hit the brakes.

I told myself early on that I would not waste time trying to figure out exactly how I got cancer, because that is a losing battle. That question may never be answered, and at this point, it doesn’t change what I have to do next.

So I dug in and focused on the things I do know how to do: stay positive, keep moving, and fight like hell.

Cancer is a diagnosis, but it doesn't define who I am. It can test my patience, wreck my schedule, and challenge my independence, but it does not get to take my spirit or my sense of humor. It's already tried. Cancer, you're losing.

I'm still moving through this with gratitude and as much grace as I can manage. But cancer absolutely put me in a club nobody signs up for.

Most people who get my type of cancer are decades older than I am, so being 37 puts me in a very different category. My doctors are treating this aggressively with seven weeks of radiation and high-dose chemotherapy every three weeks. When I asked my oncologist for his honest opinion about treatment, he made it very clear why UCSF mattered. Convenience in Marin was one option. Experience at UCSF was another. I chose experience.

That decision came with a price. I had to drop my HMO during open enrollment and move to the best PPO I could get so I could receive direct care through UCSF without constantly fighting for referrals. That insurance alone is about $25,000 a year, and I expect to need it for at least the next three years while I go through treatment, recovery, and monitoring.

Before treatment even started, I had to make one of the hardest decisions of my life.

I come from a big family, and I have always wanted one of my own. I never pictured my life without children.

I had made peace with leaving motherhood in God’s hands. But once cancer entered the conversation, it stopped feeling like timing and started feeling like something was being taken from me. And I was not willing to hand that over without a fight. I went through 3 months of fertility preservation before treatment — not because it was easy, and definitely not because it was cheap, but because I could not live with letting cancer make that decision for me.

That cost $17,000 up front, and that is only the beginning. There are still ongoing storage and preservation costs, and I have been told I need to wait at least a year after a cancer-free diagnosis before I can even try to have a family. It is a strange kind of heartbreak to be fighting for your life while also trying to protect the possibility of the future you always thought you would have.

Now I’m in the thick of treatment, and it is brutal.

Treatment is not poetic. It is not inspiring. It is painful, disorienting, and exhausting. My mouth feels burned from the inside out. I can’t taste anything. Water hurts. Talking is hard. Eating feels like punishment. I’m losing weight, losing energy, and spending an absurd amount of money just trying to figure out what I can physically get down. I have to drink Lidocaine just to manage swallowing. Some days I feel like a shell of myself, but most days I’m too stubborn to let cancer see me fold.

The other day my Dad was driving me to treatment and I was putting on mascara in the car, and I told him "On the days that I can, it feels good to put on makeup. If I can show up for myself, it's easier to show up for others".

Maybe cancer has turned me into a poet. But, it's true. If you feel good, it's easier to be good to others. And If I can feel a little more like myself, it becomes easier to keep going.

The ebbs and flows of treatment are real. Radiation is cumulative and is expected to get progressively worse in the coming weeks.

But chemo hits differently. It knocks me flat. I call it a "Chemo Blackout". For a full 5 days after chemotherapy, I get sick, vomit, black out, deal with brain fog, and feel lifeless.

After my first chemotherapy treatment, when the chemo floor closed and they sent me out, I was so weak and disoriented that I crawled to my car in the parking garage, fell asleep, and had to wait for family to come get me. I was so out of it that I forgot I could even turn on the heater, so I sat there for an hour and a half in agony, just waiting.

I now have to go in regularly for hydration and infusions because I cannot keep up on my own. They poke me so often that my veins have scar tissue and are harder to access. I also have to go through additional infusions to protect against long-term side effects like hearing loss, even though they make me violently sick. This whole process is as glamorous as it sounds. The STS treatment feels like someone is running lighter fluid through my veins and chasing it with a thousand lit matches. It is excruciating. But what is the point of surviving all of this if chemotherapy takes my hearing too? I can’t imagine a world where I come out on the other side of cancer and lose the ability to hear my future kids laugh, cry, giggle, and tell stories. So while suffering through STS is awful, I also know it is a blessing that this protection exists.

Head and neck cancer also comes with another layer most people never think about: dental oncology. For the people who truly know me, you know how hard this part hits. I’m the person who signs off my goodnight texts with, “Don’t forget to brush and floss.” So this has been a particularly rude low blow. Radiation can permanently affect my jaw, mouth, gums, and teeth. I now have fluoride trays that cost $250, prescription fluoride toothpaste that costs $50 for a travel-size tube, and I have to keep using it indefinitely to help protect my teeth.

Then there is work life.

Burns Florist is not just my business — it is my only source of income. I’ve owned it for the last 10 years, and it is the oldest flower shop in Marin. I’ve carried on a legacy that is over a century old through a pandemic, economic downturns, a building-wide flood, and government shutdowns. Most years, I’ve done that largely on my own, with seasonal staff and high school students who leave for college and come back during the holidays.

It matters deeply to me that people know I have not closed my doors for good. I am still here. But right now, the shop has taken a significant hit while I’ve been away, even with my two trusted designers and friends stepping in to help keep things going. I can’t be in two places at once. If I make it into work at all, it’s usually only a couple of times a week for a few hours, and most of the time, I simply can’t get there.

Trying to manage treatment and keep some presence in the shop has become almost impossible. The drive into the city and back is about an hour and a half each way. It hurts my body. It wipes me out. And it adds up fast: about $10 a day in bridge tolls, at least $30 in gas, up to $35 a day in parking, plus copays, prescriptions, dental oncology costs, and everything else that comes with treatment. I have spent hundreds of dollars in a single week just trying different foods to see what I can get down, only to have them hurt too much or taste so terrible they go to waste. These expenses are adding up fast, especially without bringing home an income.

On top of that, my home rent is going up, life keeps moving, and nothing about being sick makes the rest of the bills pause.

The truth is, I have spent the majority of my youth and young adulthood saving for a house, for stability, for a future, for the life I thought I was building. I pictured a home, a partner, children, and my flower shop continuing to grow alongside that life. Instead, I’m doing this alone, and my savings are being redirected toward saving my life.

That is a very hard thing to watch happen in real time.

The first thing GoFundMe asks is how much you want to raise, and honestly, it feels like putting a price tag on my life. I don’t know how to do that neatly. I don’t know how to assign a number to my health, my future, my fertility, my business, or my ability to get through treatment without losing everything I spent years building.

But I do know this: I cannot do it alone.

If you’re in a position to help, your donation will go toward medical expenses, PPO insurance, fertility preservation and storage, dental oncology, prescriptions, daily travel to and from UCSF, basic living expenses while I’m unable to work, and helping me keep Burns Florist standing while I focus on healing.

If you can’t donate, sharing this means more than you probably realize.

I will fight this with everything I have. I will kick cancer’s ass and come back with even more gratitude, perspective, and appreciation for life than I had before. I’ll still be me — just with a little more scar tissue, a lot more perspective, and the same wit, heart, and stubbornness that got me this far. I've got a lot more livin' to do and my dogs and I have a lot more places to explore.

Thank you for reading this, for caring, and for standing with me.

With all my love and immense gratitude,

Kelly