Help Rhea & Tad
Donation protected
We all know and love my sister Rhea. She is a loving mother and has been a letterpress printer in Fort Bragg, California for Studio Z for over 20 years. She also dedicates hundreds of hours to animal rescue and fostering kittens, often caring for the most feral to rehab them to house kitties that no other fosters are willing to take. She gives selflessly to other people and organizations regularly, even while being low income herself. Rhea has been struggling with her health for several years and has been diagnosed with more than one autoimmune disease, but various treatments were not seeming to help and her health has continued to deteriorate.
Two weeks ago Rhea had a CT scan that showed a tumor and cyst on her left kidney and rare cyst on her spleen. Her oncologist said the probability of it being cancer is over 90% and so high they most likely won't even bother doing a biopsy, and that it just needs to be surgically removed. Rhea has an MRI scheduled for March 24th to determine if they will be removing part of kidney or the whole thing. They will most likely be removing the spleen at the same time. She is currently in stage 3 kidney disease and hopefully that will improve after surgery. The surgery date is TBD, but will be at UCSF. We should know more soon.
The good news is the recovery/cure rate after surgery is extremely high in the 90% to 95% area, it is just the getting her through this part that we need help with.
Currently Rhea has not been able to pay her mortgage in several months. Rhea has not been able to work much due to how sick she is and will not be able to work for several months after the surgery since she cannot lift anything over 10lbs. In addition to this, one of Rhea's beloved rescue kitties - Tad (short for Tadpole) has become sick and is hospitalized himself. We are trying to save his life, but it will also cost more than Rhea has right now.
Rhea is really overwhelmed, exhausted and obviously a little scared. It is hard for her to ask for help, but we need to. We will be looking into other organizations that can help, and can also share the exact costs of Tad's vet care, but if you can help even a small amount, Rhea would be so grateful. Tad is a huge part of her and her daughters selfcare. Ona will also have a list of other things local people can help with if you are unable to contribute in a financial way, we absolutely understand these are difficult times.
Two weeks ago Rhea had a CT scan that showed a tumor and cyst on her left kidney and rare cyst on her spleen. Her oncologist said the probability of it being cancer is over 90% and so high they most likely won't even bother doing a biopsy, and that it just needs to be surgically removed. Rhea has an MRI scheduled for March 24th to determine if they will be removing part of kidney or the whole thing. They will most likely be removing the spleen at the same time. She is currently in stage 3 kidney disease and hopefully that will improve after surgery. The surgery date is TBD, but will be at UCSF. We should know more soon.
The good news is the recovery/cure rate after surgery is extremely high in the 90% to 95% area, it is just the getting her through this part that we need help with.
Currently Rhea has not been able to pay her mortgage in several months. Rhea has not been able to work much due to how sick she is and will not be able to work for several months after the surgery since she cannot lift anything over 10lbs. In addition to this, one of Rhea's beloved rescue kitties - Tad (short for Tadpole) has become sick and is hospitalized himself. We are trying to save his life, but it will also cost more than Rhea has right now.
Rhea is really overwhelmed, exhausted and obviously a little scared. It is hard for her to ask for help, but we need to. We will be looking into other organizations that can help, and can also share the exact costs of Tad's vet care, but if you can help even a small amount, Rhea would be so grateful. Tad is a huge part of her and her daughters selfcare. Ona will also have a list of other things local people can help with if you are unable to contribute in a financial way, we absolutely understand these are difficult times.
Organizer
Ona Rynearson
Organizer
Fort Bragg, CA