Kim Penrod's Cancer Fighting Fund

Hello friends and family, My name is Katie Harris, and I am Kim (Garrison) Penrod's niece-in-law. I have been a part of her huge, wonderful family for 11 years. I am starting this fundraiser with a heavy heart, as she is so very special to me, and to so many of you, and she recently received some bad news at the hospital and now needs your help. Kim had been diagnosed with a rare form of bile duct cancer, cholangiocarcinoma. Her cancer is on the inside of her bile duct where it enters her liver. The oncologist told us today- "Think of the bile duct as a tree. The tumor is at the very trunk of the tree. The liver has 2 lobes, coming together at the trunk of that bile duct. It's where everything comes together, which makes cancer in this location completely inoperable." Chemotherapy is the only option available. Only 5,000-10,000 people are diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma a year, and of those, only 10% are in this difficult location. Kim needs a miracle. And prayers. This is how we got to where we are today in just a couple short weeks: Kim (Aunt Kim, as I call her) had been feeling really sick for about a week beginning the week of 10/7/18. She put it off, as she does, thinking she was just experiencing symptoms of a bad cold or the flu. She had to work, you know? Aunt Kim doesn't miss work for anything. She is a Correctional Nurse of 14 years at Miami Correctional Facility in Indiana. She also had to go an annual family Halloween party. She refused to miss it. After leaving the Halloween party the night of 10/13/18, Kim's daughter, Carrie, took her to Marion General Hospital. She had some testing done there, and instead of Aunt Kim having the flu, they found a blood clot near her liver. She was then rushed by ambulance to Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne ,  as this required immediate treatment and further testing .