Hi. My name is Kristina Allan and I am a 49-year-old single mom to a beautiful 16-year-old daughter, Ava Grace. I went to the ER on the morning of 9-6-2024 with what I thought was severe constipation and ended up needing emergency surgery for a massive tumor in my ascending colon and right ovary removal due to a tumor. My ascending colon and tumor were removed, and a temporary ostomy was placed. I spent 5 nights in the hospital before I was able to go home. When the pathology came back, I found out that I had stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to the right ovary. After an immediate PET scan, they found 3 spots on my liver. Needless to say, I was in shock. I am an otherwise healthy person, so this was devastating news. I had just started orientation at a dream job, floor nurse at Marquette County Medical Care Facility. My passion is taking care of other people, especially our elderly community. I had to resign my position in order to start the healing process as well as chemotherapy. So not only am I away from a career that I love, I am dealing with a terrible diagnosis and a long road of treatments ahead of me. I am not one to ask for help, and will usually figure out a way to get things done, but this is a task that I am going to need all of the help and support that I can get. As soon as I am healed from my initial surgery, I am hopeful to be well enough to at the very least, volunteer in some capacity in helping our local elderly, until I can go back to being what I was meant to be, a nurse.