Karyn Newbill Helmig

Hey, friends...Our beautiful friend Karyn Newbill Helmig has been handed a really challenging medical diagnosis and needs our support in a big way. After a truly dreadful series of major life events, culminating in the death of her husband Shawn in November 2022, Karyn recently learned that her months of exhaustion, weight loss and other troubling symptoms were, in fact, ovarian cancer in the form of five...FIVE malignant tumors in her abdomen! This news has us all reeling, Karyn most of all. She had surgery earlier in August...Her wonderful and brilliant surgeon, who will also be her oncologist, removed every bit of cancer she could find, along with Karyn's uterus, ovaries and fallopian tubes.

Karyn is recovering nicely but isn't even close to being done with her treatment. Starting on September 5th, she will be having the first of six rounds of chemotherapy, each round consisting of two different drugs, administered every three weeks until mid-December. This chemo will likely include many of the difficult side effects we've all heard about...Nausea, fatigue, bone pain, and yes, hair loss. The physical and mental toll her diagnosis and treatment will take on Karyn is huge and will keep her out of her magical classroom and away from the students who love her so much for an entire year.

Hair loss--this is where we can step forward to support Karyn. There is a process which has been proven quite successful, called "cold-capping." With cold-capping, Karyn will use dry ice and special equipment to cool her scalp. The extreme cold numbs the hair follicles and prevents the toxic chemotherapy chemicals from damaging them. Cold-capping is proven successful in nearly 90% of people who use it, especially when trained medical folks are there for the nearly six hours it takes to fully implement this protocol.

As you can imagine, cold-capping doesn't come cheap. Insurance does not cover the $6,000 it takes to properly and consistently cold-cap. Many have asked how they can help Karyn; here's your chance.

By the way, any funds above and beyond the $6,000 will go to support other aspects of Karyn's treatment, including supplements, medical testing and other therapies not covered by insurance. In addition, her medical leave from teaching is also impacting her financially.

If you can, please help. Karyn is so dear us...Whether you've been fortunate enough to take her Marine Biology class--with its field trips to Malibu and Catalina--or to have her as your friend, you KNOW how wonderful she is. This is a very hard time and she deserves our support. Updates will follow...Thank you for reading and for loving our Karyn the way you do!