Our mom, Suzie Babala, is everything good. You may know her as your loyal friend, or perhaps the daycare provider who loved your child while in her care and long after. Maybe she was your first warm welcome to the Petaluma Youth Soccer League. Or, maybe you’ve felt her love and warmth just through being our friend through the years. At the very least, we all appreciate her as a giver of warm hugs and homemade chocolate chip cookies. If you’ve had the pleasure of meeting our mom, you know that she has an ability to make people feel so easily loved, so special and so cherished. It is our turn to love and cherish her now, to show up for her the way she has always shown up for us.

After several weeks of severe stomach pains, our mom went to the emergency room on November 10, 2025 where they found a mass in her colon and tumors on her liver. She was immediately admitted into the hospital where scans and biopsies were taken and she underwent a procedure to place a stent in her colon. The successful stent insertion eases her pain while eating and will hopefully allow future tumor directed therapy treatments better access to the mass. She was discharged on November 13 and officially diagnosed on November 15 with stage 4 colon cancer that has spread to her liver.

We are only at the beginning of this long journey, still waiting to hear of treatment plans whether it be surgery, immunotherapy, chemotherapy, or some combination of the three. We await many oncology appointments while we settle into this new normal and hope to keep our spirits high.

Though our mom still plans to work and the three of us intend to fill as many gaps as we can, we’ve learned in this short time that cancer takes a huge toll physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. Our donation goal is set to less than what we expect to need but this would be a start. With the information we have now, any and all donations will go to:

While we are so grateful for any donations, and if you are lucky enough to know our mom, you’ll also know that hugs, kind words, and well wishes mean the world to her just as much. We will do our best to keep this page as updated as possible. We know how much our mom means to a lot of you so please reach out to any of the three of us if you feel moved to.

Sincerely,

Deegan, Peter, and Aubrey Babala