Help Rhonda Beat Pancreatic Cancer
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Dear friends,
My sweet wife Rhonda, the mother of our 6 children (Ashleigh, Katie, James, Austin, Cameron, and Jacob) was recently diagnosed with stage-4 Adenocarcinoma (Pancreatic Cancer). It has been a real struggle for her over the past few months, coping with the early symptoms of the tumor and the additional painful onset of Acute Pancreatitis, challenges that she continues to bear daily.
As you can imagine, like our own mothers, she has dedicated her whole life to the providing for the wellbeing of her children, something I've watched by her side with the deepest respect and admiration (and something I'm struggling to measure up to myself as I attempt to fill her shoes!).
It is her spirit for adventure and learning that, with great courage, lead our family to do what most would consider impossible (or just plain crazy), and sell most of our earthly belongings in order to explore the world, teach the children and build binding memories together as a family. Something we feel especially blessed now to have been able to experience for a full year, thanks to her encouragement.
In contrast, most of her days now are spent in bed, dealing with the increasing onset of pain and fatigue and the resulting loss of weight and appetite due to the cancer symptoms and medication.
Having lost her mother in 2002, and 3 aunts to cancer soon thereafter, she decided to test for the BRCA 2 gene a few years ago and was found positive. She has taken careful measures to live a cancer-preventative lifestyle ever since (even so far as to have preventative surgeries), so this diagnosis came as a real surprise and blow to all of us.
We need your help.
After much careful research and consideration, she has decided to pursue cancer treatments at a special cancer clinic in Germany, where physicians are successfully treating cancer using a mix of conventional and nonconventional procedures many of which, due to regulations, are not practiced yet in the states. These life-saving procedures offer her great hope to halt or reverse the growth of this aggressive form of cancer, hoping to qualify her for an extensive (Whipple) surgery if cancer can be isolated once again to the pancreas.
The center offers a 4-week, inpatient, comprehensive care program tailored specifically to her diagnosis and stage. They have room to treat 10 patients at a time and were fully booked this June. However, a kind, non-critical patient, who was scheduled to be there in June has graciously offered to have Rhonda take her place, due to Rhonda's critical circumstances. This is a great blessing and opportunity, but due to the location of the treatment center, insurance will not cover the costs for her time spent there or the treatments she receives.
The funds from this GoFundMe will be used to cover those medical expenses and the costs to fly her there by June 9th, when the treatments are scheduled to begin. In order to hold a place for her at the clinic, most of the expense is due in a down-payment within the next 5 days (June 3rd), making the need to raise funds urgent.
The fund will also remain open to cover the additional expenses for treatment that will be needed in the future as she moves forward with great hopes of beating this.
Your contributions are very appreciated by all of us, and we are unable to sufficiently express our gratitude to the many of you who have already taken your time to bring meals, send cards and take the little boys to do fun activities and like things. We love you!
It is our great hope that these treatments will allow Rhonda to heal, and to survive this trial so that she can take the next steps to return to doing what she loves most, spending precious time with her family. We have great faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his infinite Atonement and know that miracles happen in the lives of many every day.
We pray for a miracle for Rhonda.
With much love and gratitude,
Chris, Ashleigh, Katie, James, Austin, Cameron and Jacob.
Search for @crabtreecrew on Instagram for a peek into our family life and how Rhonda's loving interaction and dreams have affected the lives of our children. We love her so much.
My sweet wife Rhonda, the mother of our 6 children (Ashleigh, Katie, James, Austin, Cameron, and Jacob) was recently diagnosed with stage-4 Adenocarcinoma (Pancreatic Cancer). It has been a real struggle for her over the past few months, coping with the early symptoms of the tumor and the additional painful onset of Acute Pancreatitis, challenges that she continues to bear daily.
As you can imagine, like our own mothers, she has dedicated her whole life to the providing for the wellbeing of her children, something I've watched by her side with the deepest respect and admiration (and something I'm struggling to measure up to myself as I attempt to fill her shoes!).
It is her spirit for adventure and learning that, with great courage, lead our family to do what most would consider impossible (or just plain crazy), and sell most of our earthly belongings in order to explore the world, teach the children and build binding memories together as a family. Something we feel especially blessed now to have been able to experience for a full year, thanks to her encouragement.
In contrast, most of her days now are spent in bed, dealing with the increasing onset of pain and fatigue and the resulting loss of weight and appetite due to the cancer symptoms and medication.
Having lost her mother in 2002, and 3 aunts to cancer soon thereafter, she decided to test for the BRCA 2 gene a few years ago and was found positive. She has taken careful measures to live a cancer-preventative lifestyle ever since (even so far as to have preventative surgeries), so this diagnosis came as a real surprise and blow to all of us.
We need your help.
After much careful research and consideration, she has decided to pursue cancer treatments at a special cancer clinic in Germany, where physicians are successfully treating cancer using a mix of conventional and nonconventional procedures many of which, due to regulations, are not practiced yet in the states. These life-saving procedures offer her great hope to halt or reverse the growth of this aggressive form of cancer, hoping to qualify her for an extensive (Whipple) surgery if cancer can be isolated once again to the pancreas.
The center offers a 4-week, inpatient, comprehensive care program tailored specifically to her diagnosis and stage. They have room to treat 10 patients at a time and were fully booked this June. However, a kind, non-critical patient, who was scheduled to be there in June has graciously offered to have Rhonda take her place, due to Rhonda's critical circumstances. This is a great blessing and opportunity, but due to the location of the treatment center, insurance will not cover the costs for her time spent there or the treatments she receives.
The funds from this GoFundMe will be used to cover those medical expenses and the costs to fly her there by June 9th, when the treatments are scheduled to begin. In order to hold a place for her at the clinic, most of the expense is due in a down-payment within the next 5 days (June 3rd), making the need to raise funds urgent.
The fund will also remain open to cover the additional expenses for treatment that will be needed in the future as she moves forward with great hopes of beating this.
Your contributions are very appreciated by all of us, and we are unable to sufficiently express our gratitude to the many of you who have already taken your time to bring meals, send cards and take the little boys to do fun activities and like things. We love you!
It is our great hope that these treatments will allow Rhonda to heal, and to survive this trial so that she can take the next steps to return to doing what she loves most, spending precious time with her family. We have great faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his infinite Atonement and know that miracles happen in the lives of many every day.
We pray for a miracle for Rhonda.
With much love and gratitude,
Chris, Ashleigh, Katie, James, Austin, Cameron and Jacob.
Search for @crabtreecrew on Instagram for a peek into our family life and how Rhonda's loving interaction and dreams have affected the lives of our children. We love her so much.
Organisateur
Chris Crabtree
Organisateur
Lindon, UT