Help our friends CLAUDIA and SCOTT

I am asking for financial support with this
campaign for our friends Claudia Chandler
and Scott Giles. Please share with anyone
you think may want to help!

Some of you may or may not know, because
they tend to be very private, but just days
before Christmas of 2016 Claudia was
diagnosed with stage III multiple myeloma.
Multiple myeloma is a blood cancer of the
bone marrow plasma cells. At diagnosis, she
began specialized chemotherapy treatments to fight off the cancer. Initially she responded very well to treatment and even experienced a brief time of remission at which point she
was able to harvest her own stem cells.
However, in September 2018, her cancer
relapsed and she was treated with radiation
and immunotherapy drugs considered to be
the new front line treatment for multiple
myeloma. After over a year of treatment,
Claudia began experiencing severe pains in
her legs. CT and PET scans confirmed that
the cancer was no longer responding to
treatment and the multiple lesions in her legs and throughout her skeleton had progressed.

Claudia is now being advised the best course of action is to undergo an autologous stem
cell transplant with the cells she harvested a
few years back. This procedure will require
Claudia to be in the city at New York
Presbyterian Hospital for approximately
three weeks. Claudia’s main concern about
this procedure is being away from her family, especially her daughter Autumn. When she
returns home it is a very long recovery
process, often leaving the patient very weak
with an incredibly compromised immune
system. The average recovery is around six
months but it can take up to a year to fully
regain immune strength.

Regardless of how difficult a journey this has already been, Claudia has never wavered
from her positive attitude and steadfast faith. She continued to work and keep her home
life as uninterrupted as possible, sheltering
her children (Max 19 and Autumn 10) from as
much as she could as to not cause them
concern. Sadly, for the first time Autumn will
see her mommy looking “sick”. One of the
crazy things about multiple myeloma, people have no idea what is going on the inside of
their bodies as often they look quite healthy on the outside. But, with the high-dose
chemo used in this process, Claudia will lose her hair and most likely a considerable
amount of weight as patients often have
difficulty eating for quite some time.

Scott is making arrangements with friends
and family that have already stepped up to     help out as he juggles working, taking care of
Autumn and their pups, and supporting
Claudia. Those of you that know Claudia and Scot well, you know they never ask for help
and are always the first in line when someone else needs support. I am hoping that by lifting some of the financial burdens that will come with such a huge physical and emotional
procedure and recovery, we can show them
they’re not alone and that we can be a source of hope and light during a dark time in their
lives.

*please note that due to the nature of a SCT, no flowers or food can be accepted because  of the many restrictions during recovery.