I’m Aidan (Sylvie), and I’m healing a rare pelvic tumor while being followed by one of the best research hospitals in Mexico. I need help covering essential medical exams, travel for treatment, nutritious food, and healing support. I’m doing everything I can, but I cannot cover all of it alone. Thank you for helping me continue.

Hello friends,

I’m Aidan (Sylvie). Thank you so much for being here.

Four years ago, I began navigating one of the rarest tumors known. This journey has unfolded physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Your support in the past has helped me survive deep challenges and lay the foundation for the life I am rebuilding today. I’m profoundly grateful for this community.

Many of you supported me in the early chaotic stages and your help made a real difference. Today, I am still healing. I am approaching this part of the journey with more clarity, stability, and strength than before.

Where I Am Now

I am living in Mexico and being followed by the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán in Mexico City, the best research hospital here. Their team has previously operated on tumors like the one in my body without removing surrounding organs.

That option is not available to me at this time, but I am officially under their medical care for monitoring and follow-up. I am also sincerely grateful that the rarity of my case and personal situation has allowed the general allopathic treatment to be covered by the government program.

Alongside this, I continue the inner work I’ve been doing since 2022: emotional integration, nervous system balance, deep personal change, meditation, and mind–body work aimed at helping my body shift its internal chemistry through neuroplasticity, coherence, and epigenetic changes that create an environment in which the tumor cannot thrive.

Recent Medical Update

This summer, we received encouraging news:

the tumor shrank from 35 cm to 25 cm in height.

It was a moment of hope and relief.

Since then, part of that progress has reversed due to high stress, strain, instability, and some complications around the treatment process. While this wasn’t ideal, I’ve already seen my body change twice, including after a 20-day water fast, which also helped reduce the tumor and brought important improvements to my digestion, overall functioning, and quality of life that I needed to keep going on this longer run.

That fast also taught me something essential:

if my mind and body can do that, I am capable of much more than I ever imagined.

I’m staying committed and focused on giving my body the best possible conditions to keep healing.

What I’m Building Alongside Healing

Healing has pushed me to rebuild my life in a new way.

Sanctuary Project (Photos with the animals at the end <3)

I’m creating a small sanctuary for animals and humans: a space connected to nature, care, and regeneration. It gives meaning to my daily life and keeps me oriented toward the future. My goal is to create the space that I needed all these years and to be able to offer it to others and support them in their journeys.

Writing My Journey

I am writing the stories and insights that emerged along this journey: the milestones that helped me understand trauma, resilience, transformation, and the intelligence of the body. I hope they become useful to others, from survival states to fully aligned aliveness.

Doing My Part While Healing

Until a few weeks ago, I was working full-time as a chef in a restaurant: six days a week, eight hours a day, making the equivalent of 2 euros an hour to support myself. While it helped me stay afloat and maintain my independence, it eventually became too demanding physically, especially with a large pelvic tumor.

As this survival-mode rhythm became unsustainable for my health, I am reorganizing my life in ways that honor healing and allow me to live in a more balanced, regenerative way. I genuinely hope for a world where none of us have to grind ourselves out of our well-being just to survive.

I’m still doing my part every day—financially, practically, and in the way I show up in my healing and in the world. But I cannot cover all healing costs alone yet.

How Your Support Helps

Your support goes directly to the essential costs connected to my healing and medical follow-up.

The treatment takes a real toll on my body, so proper food, supplements, and supportive therapies help me stay strong, handle the intensity, and give my body what it needs to keep healing.

1. Medical exams, labs & monitoring (not covered)

While I’m grateful the main specialist visits are covered, some important treatment and follow-up costs are not, including:

medication and prescribed supplements

specific exams

analyses and monitoring

2. Travel & logistics for treatment in Mexico City

For each appointment, I must travel to Mexico City, which includes:

long-distance transportation

the cost of staying in Mexico City during treatments

local transportation inside the city (Mexico City is very large and appointments often require long commutes)

basic medical supplies

My last two-week treatment stay created a significant financial strain I’m still recovering from, and my next appointment is scheduled for next week.

3. Nutritious food (high priority)

Food is medicine for my body right now.

I currently sustain my basic daily needs through my own efforts, but having support allows me to consistently access:

fresh fruits and vegetables

anti-inflammatory ingredients

whole, nutrient-rich foods

Nutritious, vibrant food helps my body heal more efficiently by giving it the nutrients it needs and also reducing the energy spent on digestion so it can be redirected to healing instead.

4. Supplements

If there is additional support, it will go toward targeted supplements that help the body repair and regulate itself more efficiently.

This includes:

digestive and liver support

immune system support

blends to regulate stress responses, support immunity, and reinforce resilience

minerals and vitamins needed to support the strain on the body during treatment

These tools help me maintain homeostasis and support the mind–body work I am doing daily.

5. Complementary therapies

If possible, I’d like to integrate again gentle modalities that support detoxification, nervous system balance, and emotional integration.

6. Future medical trips

Anything remaining will be saved for future hospital visits.

Why I’m Asking Again

I’m doing everything I can: healing, creating, contributing, reorganising my life, but I cannot cover all the healing and logistical costs alone yet.

Your support helps me:

continue follow-up appointments

access essential exams

travel for treatment

nourish my body properly

stay resilient through the physical toll of treatment

reduce stress so I can focus on healing

Every contribution, small or large, makes a meaningful difference.

If you can’t donate, sharing the page also helps a lot.

And if all you can offer is a kind message or good energy, I truly appreciate it.

Thank you for supporting me through this chapter.

It means more than I can say.

With gratitude,

Aidan (Sylvie)

2024 Update — Archived for Transparency

It’s been almost 2 years since I’ve launched this GoFundMe. Wow! I can’t believe it’s been this long! It feels like I’ve lived several lifetimes and it also seems it all happened in a heartbeat.

I would have never been able to embark onto this crazy challenge without your help and support. I am sincerely, forever grateful for your generosity. You showing your love to help me in such a big way has had a profound impact on me.

Acknowledging I needed help, accepting I deserved it, coming to terms to ask for it and to actually receiving it in ways I could have never imagined, has been one of the most difficult yet most powerful steps I’ve had to take through this transformation. I’m still integrating all of that today. Worthiness is not an easy one to master! But I now go about life with more sense that I’m loved and supported thanks to you all. I’m sincerely so grateful!

After so much time I am finally able to give you an update on where I am on this deep process.

2024 HEALTH UPDATE

I first created this GoFundMe exactly 2 years ago, during the period in which I was given an original diagnosis. That was already very scary to everyone. A few weeks after it, on top of it, I was told my body had Stage 4 cancer. That news devastated my family and close friends and frightened them to death. But thankfully, the second tumor ended up being an imagery reading mistake from the medical team.

After 2 more biopsies, and a lot of back and forth and horrible process spending my time at the hospital for almost 2 months, I was given another diagnosis. I don’t spend much energy on the name. I don’t want to ingrain that in my mind as an immutable fact or as part of my identity. I wondered if I should even share it. Maybe I will later. For now, I don’t want the label. To be honest as I’m writing, I cannot even remember what the illness is called. What I can say is that the tumor is very rare. There are from a hundred to a few hundred known cases in the world. Sometimes it metastasizes, sometimes it doesn’t. I trust that the one in my body won’t! The current threat to my life is the size and location of it. By keeping on growing, the tumor would ultimately prevent me from being able to evacuate body waste and therefore prevent me to eat and drink. As a response to it, the specialist allopathic doctors that followed me at the Anti-Cancer Hospital in Nice gave me the option of:

- Removing the tumor through surgery, alongside with the vagina, rectum, bladder and right buttock.

- A very heavy hormonal and radiotherapy treatment that would leave me unable to live properly for the rest of my life

None of the above options were confirmed to actually work to successfully remove the tumor and to prevent it from growing back. It’s all a game of guessing, trial and error. I would be taking the risk to live life terribly on a daily basis and to cripple myself for the rest of it without any insurance. To be honest, without addressing the root cause of the issue, I don’t understand how all of a sudden, the symptom (the tumor) would be forever gone, let alone the actual reason for it. The doctors themselves don’t really understand much of the origin and the body process itself. They have clearly admitted it to me.

In November 2023, date of my last MRI, the tumor had grown to 30 cm x 22 cm x 11 cm (12 inch x 8.6 inch x 4.5 inch). It has taken over all of the available room constantly pushing inside my pelvic area in all directions. A considerable part of it is now coming out of my body. It has a big impact on it and on my day-to-day life. I have learned to deal with it, adapting my life in ways I would have never thought to do. I’ll be happy when it ends and I prefer to keep this private for now. The tumor, although clearly and constantly visible by me is not noticeable when carefully hidden by clothes and awareness around it, especially to people that don’t know about its presence. I’m very fortunate that I have been able to keep on living a normal life in the eyes of the outside world.

I used to be very time conscious. I was counting the growth rate of the tumor and how much time I had left to heal. I believe it was very counterproductive and was mostly induced by the pressure of doctors telling me death is coming. Before the separation, I was also having serious conversations with my ex-partner regarding my last days and funeral arrangements.

I am currently living away from any of these fear-based considerations. I am certain I will heal and live. I know it’s not my time. I practice my patience to the extreme. And yes, sometimes it runs out. I get sad and frustrated of the sacrifices I constantly need to make or the new ones I didn’t see coming, hoping I had passed a threshold. Yes, I’m excited for when it’s finally over, I’m healthy and I can live the way I want without thinking about any of this anymore. I’m already doing so as much as I can. The moments of deep despair or fear are gone and the ones feeling down, hopeless or doubtful are shorter and very rare. I am embracing this chapter as fully part of my life. All I have is now. Can I make it the best time? Can I enjoy it to the fullest? Can I be the happiest I’ve ever been despite it all?

Not focusing on the name or the illness doesn’t mean I’m unconscious. On the contrary, I know this is the best way I can support my healing. I believe that the universe is supporting me along the way. Every day I am presented with the next steps of my healing journey and I need to stay focused on the present knowing that if I do my best today, as well as every other day I’m gifted, everything will work out fine. This is the ultimate clutch test! I would have loved to play quarterback again with these new skills! They would have impacted my game and how I’m able to support my team in such a powerful way! 2 minutes drill with 100 yards to go?! Easy baby!

2024 PERSONAL LIFE UPDATE

I feel I have to give a bit of personal life updates given how everything is so intrinsically linked.

Two years ago, I was explaining you about how I wanted to be reunited with my wife after I had to leave the US in emergency. I had to leave her and our dogs in a very abrupt way and having her by my side during the medical and healing journey would be an immense support. At the time, given the first medical opinions in the US and the bad legal advice I received, I was not able to file the document that would potentially allow me to get back into the country I called home and to finish my green card process. I also told you about the financial issues I was facing. Here is a little update on this regard:

- Although we got reunited, my wife and I separated a year ago. She has custody of our dogs. I sincerely know it’s for the best, like everything else, but going through this change has been by far the most challenging experience of my life.

- Despite carefully following the law and every single rule of my immigration process, the circumstances of last year are so that I am currently not allowed back in the US until 2032, not even as a tourist, not even to set foot in an airport as a layover. I will see what kind of energy I want to give to changing this situation in the coming years.

- As I’m unable to enter back into the US, I will end my football career there, even after I’m healed. The goal of playing again was a big motivation for me. It helped me a lot going through this healing chapter. I was very excited to bring back what I had learned from it and very much looking forward to reach my full potential playing football. I had dedicated all my life to this sport and sacrificed so much for a decade. Saying goodbye to it, in such a brutal way and not on my terms, has been a very difficult process.

- I moved across the globe in unexpected and traumatic ways 4 times in less than 24 months and lived in 17 different places (12 in the last year)

- My financial situation has gone from dire to catastrophic. I was able to focus on my healing journey thanks to your donations. That money ran out and without the support of a partner I am currently unable to live normally. Going through the separation and the big upheavals in my life in the last year, I have very thankfully been supported by close family and close friends in a way that prevented me from being in the street. I’m very grateful as I could have never done it without them. I am currently using most of my energy finding crazy ways to get enough money to pay rent, eat, have the most basic phone contract and do laundry.

WHAT I UNDERSTAND ABOUT MY HEALING JOURNEY

All of these updates might seem the opposite of good. And yeah, believe me they’ve been extremely excruciating to navigate. Every single one of them seemed impossible to overcome. Yet, I know that it’s all part of my healing/transformation journey. I know it’s all happening for me and not to me! I just need to go through the process. They’re all consequences of me changing for the better and realigning with my soul’s calling. The more I transmute trauma and blocked emotions, the more everything that is not synchronized with that new way of being will shed away. It’s all for the best!

What I understood is that given the heavy experiences that I lived as a child and teenager as well as transgenerational trauma and society conditioning; I had continuously lived in a state of survival. My body was producing huge quantities of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline putting a tremendous toll on it. It was unable to process such amounts, during such a long period of time. Our bodies are not made to function this way. The survival state is supposed to be activated for short periods of time. The fact is that our brain doesn’t see the difference from the emergency that is occurring now or the trauma that happened in the past that we’re reliving in loops, over and over, or the worry about the future that we’re making real in our minds before it even happened.

So, I opened the Pandora Box that I had carefully kept sealed while I was very busy accomplishing things in life and unconsciously distracting myself from it. I started diving deeper and deeper at the discovery of the emotions I kept trapped within me. The more layers I removed the more truth I found. But that’s for many other stories.

I have now a very good understanding of what led my body to grow the tumor. I know it’s all coming together. I just need to keep doing the deep work, to keep enjoying life fully in marvel and gratitude and to keep trusting! Now that I’ve left the constant survival state, my body can finally get a break. My goal is now to give it tools to induce and boost its natural abilities to clean itself out, remove damaged cells and everything that is not aligned anymore with its new chemistry and frequency. I’ve studied a lot of cases of people that were able to do it.

Despite everything I’ve gone through these last 2 years or during the rest of my life, I am most of the time feeling the best I’ve ever felt! And when I don’t, I know how to get back to peace. This is for me a very good sign that I’m healing. An old friend reminded me that more than 10 years ago I told her (and totally forgot about it) that I was constantly in a state of profound emotional pain and that I didn’t know if I would ever be happy. Wild, eh? Well, it’s happening! Change is always possible and for everyone!

HOW YOUR SUPPORT FROM 2022 HAS HELPED ME

2022 has been the year I’ve stopped running around and started diving into the intense traumas of my past.

I used your money to:

- Rent of a little apartment in Cannes right on top of my brother’s one and close to my mother’s

- Get my ex-partner to live with me for 3 months

- Go back and forth to the hospital in Nice

- Pay for a good health insurance

- Healthy eating on a daily basis

- A juicer that I use daily and that has helped fuel my body with the nutrients I need and support my special diet

- Books on cancer and different healing modalities that have helped me a lot in my understanding of it all and in shaping the first steps of the journey

- Various supplements to support my body

- A fast mimicking cure

- Plant medicine retreats/sessions that have helped me very deeply in understanding and unlocking parts of myself. They’ve been big milestones on my healing journey.

- Different modalities of physical, mental and emotional therapies supporting me in that first phase of the healing journey while I was uncovering very hard truths

- A Joe Dispenza retreat which has been paramount in understand the possibilities of my mind and install a solid meditation practice into my life. It has been a pivotal point on my healing journey and is a huge cornerstone of it.

Another GoFundMe was created at the end of 2022 to allow me to reunite with my ex-partner and create a space for me to heal in peace. It ended up not being that at all, but another big step along the journey.

NEXT STEPS AND HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT ME NOW

I’m at a point where I feel I’ve mostly managed to find peace and keep hope into any storm. I also managed to change the storm from being my normal inner state of being. That has allowed me to navigate to the best of my abilities so much stress and so much uncertainty in fulfilling my most basic needs.

I have really pushed the boundaries of what was possible with this, with the most dedication, strength and ingenuity. I also tried to stay the longest possible without having to ask for money again. I really thought I would be able to manage differently. I thought I could start giving life to my projects, create and give back to the world. And to receive financial abundance through that. That is still my goal as I believe to give is to receive. But to be honest it’s been very hard to manage it all at once and I sincerely can’t do it anymore. I must get back to what I’ve started learning thanks to you: I’m worthy to receive and I can ask for help.

After navigating quite some crazy waters, I have reached a moment where I’d like to:

1/ Find some balance, live a less stressful life and focus mainly on bringing my body up to speed and to integrate everything I’ve learned these past two years. My goal is to put together in a harmonious way all the pieces of me I’ve re-discovered during these two years and to support my body into rebooting all its detoxification systems so it can finish the work I’ve been relentlessly been putting energy into.

2/ Be able to share with you all, what my journey has been and what I’ve been learning along the way. I always felt the strong call to give back and contribute to the collective. I’ve been doing it in other ways in the past but I knew that this experience and the deeper growth that came with it could be something very positive and enriching for us all. I can see how my journey can resonate and help so many others around me. I would like to be able to dedicate some energy and time to it instead of using it to figure out how I’m going to live the month.

I am therefore starting a new fundraising campaign. This time the money will be used to:

- Remove the stress of not knowing how I will pay for the most basic living needs

- Pay rent

- Eat nutritious food on a daily basis

- Start mental and emotional health therapy again

- Be guided by a coach to help me detoxify my organism and be supported into very intense and demanding protocols

- Start Integration and Nervous System Balancing Therapy

- Travel to meet allopathic doctor specialists I believe could support me on my journey with specific techniques that would allow me more time

- Be supported in sharing and creating in ways that will help others

- Allow me the inner space to keep finding my way and live a fulfilling life

I am so incredibly grateful for you being part of my journey. I have been in awe of all the people that have joined in on it from previous eras of my life, to new ones, to some people I don’t even know in person yet! I really hold the hope that one day again I will be able to contribute financially to the journey of someone else and be there in this way for my loved ones. What I have received through this goes well beyond money. It has helped transform the way I see myself and the world.

Any donation has had and will have a huge impact on my life! If you cannot donate, I totally understand and please know I still have so much love and appreciation for you. Your support comes in so many forms. Please share this page with people around you! We might be called to expand this community and the impact we all have with each other.

Thanks so much for everything! In a journey I am doing on my own, I now truly know I am never alone!

WHY I'VE BEEN SILENT FOR SO LONG

This journey has been incredibly intense and has had different phases to it. Although I gave some little updates of my journey on social media or more in depth in person, I have not done so online. Here are a few reasons why:

- During a very long time after getting the diagnosis I mostly closed off from external input. I was drowning under the points of view and advice on how I should address the illness. Of course, I knew it always came with good intentions and lots of love. But it became overwhelming and it was a moment when I really needed to go inward to find my strength and direction. I had to take very hard decisions regarding which way I wanted to go to in order to heal. I took the one based on what my body and my soul were telling me. I keep on following them on this tortuous road. I have hope and determination. And also, infinite trust in my intuition and the capacity of my body to overcome anything if I give it all the help it needs. Not everyone could understand the knowing and vision I had. And given the life altering/ending stakes of the decisions before me, everyone was, understandably so, going through their own journey with fear of death, loss and many other alchemies that needed to happen for each person individually. As much as I love every person around me, it became very hard to both take care of myself and navigate conversations, doubts and worries.

- Later on, when I already was well embarked on my journey, I was and had been carrying people’s fear of my death on a daily basis in my inner circle. It was very difficult to deal with. I was already going through some deep emotional and mental healing processes. So, I was questioning if sharing more with my extended circle would either help me carry the burden and weight me down even more.

- My life then started collapsing in ways that prevented me to deal with anything else other than addressing the present, minute after minute. My full attention was on finding some sort of balance through the hurricane. It was another question of life and death but from a mental and emotional stand point. I had to dive even deeper than I had for the previous year. I was just doing my best to keep on living this experience on this planet.

- The truth is, during these two years, I was also putting immense pressure on myself to give more updates and to thank everyone individually before writing more. Although I’ve tried my best to do so, and still in the process to write to everyone, I’ve not been able to do so yet. I’ve been so lucky to receive so much support!

- Only now I feel I have the emotional balance, the wider vision to give some updates and hopefully reassure you even if where I am on my healing journey might seem like a step back from 2 years ago. It might look like that from a key hole, a superficial level. But I know I’m making tons of progress and I hope you can find that trust within you too!

2022 Original Story — Archived for Transparency

After numerous tests and excruciating waiting times, we discovered that I have Liposarcoma Cancer. It is rare type of cancer that begins in the fat cells. We found the one in my body at a very advanced stage already. It is widely spread across all of the pelvic area. It measures 25 centimetres (10 inches) long by 12 centimetres wide and 12 of height and touches all the surrounding organs. Definitely not the words you want to hear. I was not prepared for that and the whole details of it. I am now into the hands of the doctors of the regional oncologic centre in Nice where a department is luckily specialised in this type of cancer. A biopsy will be done to understand more of the nature and stages of the tumor and what options we have. A CT scan will also be done in order to check for metastasis in the lungs and abdomen. We will then decide on which way to go. Most likely it will be chemotherapy and radiation. The surgery would have been the best way if it wasn't so risky. Given the size of it, it would include the removal of major organs in the area which I personally don't consider an option. I will fight and succeed with the rest of the tools handed to me. We will know more in the coming week. Send good vibes please!
For this emergency medical situation, I had to move from the US back to France, where the health system is more affordable and where I had the legal rights to get adequate health insurance to help cover the costs of surgery and treatment. I am now living close to my family which is great for the emotional support, but they, unfortunately, cannot host me due to space. I am also saddened that I am away from my wife, Sarah, who could not come with me for several reasons.
My wife and I got married in July 2020 and we filed the application through our lawyer for my Green Card at that point. Unfortunately 20 months later we still have no news of where we are at in the process. After waiting the longest possible time for my immigration situation to clear, I had to make the hard decision to leave my wife and other loved ones (and entire life) behind, and head to Europe to take care of this health situation. By exiting the country, the application process for immigration that we started (and already paid more than $5000 for) is now invalid. We will need to refile everything from abroad and wait for my application to be granted. I will only then be able to get back to the USA.
I spent the last money I had saved up for the down payment of the van that was supposed to give our family a roof over our heads in a moment we didn’t feel there were other solutions. I am grateful for it as my wife and our dogs have been living in it since we left our house and have a place to call home. For the last year, as I was still not allowed to work in the US, Sarah, my wife, has been financially supporting our family alone, and it’s been very challenging, to say the least. We had anticipated (and been told by our lawyers) that the green card process would be much faster, but we, unfortunately, did not receive any news of this in time. As much as I tried to help Sarah, she is now exhausted and burnt out due to being a mental health therapist (among many other things) in these challenging global times. All our efforts to keep our financial situation afloat even while being hit with unforeseen expense after expense over the last year, have unfortunately been to no avail. We have been significantly impacted by the weight of the relocation, living in two different places, and all the other unexpected expenses.

This money raised will allow me and my family to get the peace of mind to focus on my healing fully. So far, I have been blessed to have friends to help me throughout this challenge. Still, it’s been very stressful to have to think about where I will be able to stay and how I am going to be able to sustain myself during this extended period of procedure(s) and an anticipated lengthy recovery. I am looking for a place to stay starting from the 1st of April as my friends are no longer able to host me.

Your contribution will pay for:

The annual health insurance cost to cover the expenses for all of the medical visits, the biopsy, chemo, radiotherapy and surgery, the hospital room every 3 weeks for 3 days of treatment, the transportation back and forth from the hospital, the treatments and all the follow up visits
The cost of relocation from the US to France
A small one bedroom apartment close to my mother and brother for them to be able to help me out.
Food and living
Allowing my wife, Sarah, to come from the US and stay close to me during the treatment

We initially evaluated the cost for a shorter treatment and recovery time. Given the recent news we received on the gravity of my situation we are now looking for a much longer one. We cannot currently foresee how long this journey will be.

Any extra money will contribute to:

A longer need for treatment, rehabilitation and recovery
The cost of applying again for the Green Card
More logistical costs we are still figuring out in order to relocate my whole family for the extended period of the healing

My recent story :

In 2018, I sold my house in Paris to live the American dream in the US and become a pro football player at the highest level in the world. I felt I had so much more within me to offer myself and the world, and I knew I could keep on expanding my comfort zone.

That journey came with many ups and downs, doubts, and unexpected obstacles that only those close to me fully know about. For example, I heard the tragic news during my first week in the US that I had lost my little brother to suicide, and he had done this in the same manner our father did when we were both much younger. I coped with this while playing my first season of football in the US, learning a new culture, and leaving everyone I knew at that point, behind, in France. Facing all of this, I kept pushing forward.

I pushed forward when many thought I would/should give up because my dream is to help women become paid professional football players. To this day we are not only not compensated. The highest level of football we have available to us to participate in are “professional” pay-to-play leagues (even after having organized leagues since the 80s). My way of pushing this dream forward has been training like the NFL players do and pushing through doors nobody has before. I believe this experience has made me grow as an athlete and human in ways I still can’t fully grasp, and I have been blessed to meet players and coaches that helped me polish my understanding of what elite is.

I entered a world that for me as both a European and a woman player, had previously felt out of reach. Having the opportunities to train and play in the US (for outstanding teams like the DC Divas of the Women’s Football Alliance ; with incredible QB trainers such as Coach Giovando, Coach Aaron or Coach Fisher and that alongside varsity, college or even NFL QBs ; working out in organisations such as EXOS or FSP in Seattle alongside professionals of all US sports ; being supported by individuals such as Dallas Martinez, Nick Hadinger, Jen Graffice, Luke Williamson and the list goes on) has given the sport more visibility in the eyes of NFL players and trainers, college and high school athletes, and the public. I am so immensely grateful for all the people that have helped me along the way with this dream, and there are so many others I could name if I had the space.

After a good season starting as Safety in Seattle, confirming I belonged at that level, I was blessed to sign with the DC Divas, one of the most iconic and long-lasting teams at the highest level of women’s football. This was the team I dreamed of playing for, ever since I started my career in 2012. Then in 2021, I was blessed to become the starting QB for my dream team, and was the first international player to ever start at the position.

After my first season in the country, paying to fly for games all across the west coast, I realised I wouldn’t be able to keep living on my savings for very long. The cost of football in the US, as an athlete (and to the level I wanted to do it), is very high, even more so when you cannot officially work. I saw many of my teammates start Gofundme fundraisers to support their football season. It is a very common thing to do. I created a campaign called “Support My Dream Of US Football” but simply deleted it. Although I had experienced before the immeasurable help friends and teammates can provide in times of need, I felt shame in asking for support for a dream that only I had a vision for.

Late 2021, when we discovered my current medical condition, I had to resolve myself to pause my football dream I had worked so hard for. I also had to say goodbye to my wife and the life we built together in the US. In the final weeks before moving, I also lost my best friend and immense supporter, my loyal cat, Batman. There aren’t enough words to describe my relationship with the most amazing cat in the world, but I will say this. Losing him has been like losing a part of my heart and the reason why I am still here pushing forward, when I needed him the most. I am in the grieving process for this recent event as well, but I am trusting the universe in this challenging time. It seems I need to find an extra-strength within me to be able to face these new obstacles and grow from them. I am thankful to Mike Hill and Dawg Culture for the support and inspiring in this journey.

22 months after deleting that previous fundraising campaign, I am starting another GoFundMe. I know my family cannot do it alone in light of this most recent information and our struggles. We ran out of options and are overwhelmed by the weight of doing this by ourselves. Friends have asked me to do it for months, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask for financial support as I know others are also struggling. However, I am now extending my comfort zone and welcoming the help and love of people who can support my family and me through this time. I am now recognising that the gifts you all offer and my asking for them is a beautiful process and that I deserve it just as anyone else. I also believe I will be able to give it back by shining stronger and offering the world more of my gifts when I will be fully healed again and ready to live out my life purpose once again. I sincerely appreciate every one of you who support me through this financially, emotionally, or even by sharing this with those in your communities. I am sending love to each of you and the world during these challenging times.

Support My Healing Journey From a Rare Pelvic Tumor

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