When you're 21, your life focus is school, friends, career building, fun, freedom-- not cancer, right? It breaks my heart to say that this is not the case for my best friend Kim Noordyk. Within the past three weeks, she has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma (hence, the campaign theme being purple as purple is HL's ribbon color), and what seems to be at least stage 2. She has already overgone a neck and bone marrow biospy, and will be starting her 6-8 rounds of chemo shortly. As heavy as that all is, to me, that isn't the heart wrenching part.

Kim has always been a fighter and has always come out on top. She just graduated from Rutgers with a degree in Social Work, and is supposed to begin working for child care services in August-- and now there is no telling when that will begin. Her parents will be taking time off from work to assist her, as she is currently living back at home. They will need to pay for everything from wigs (have you seen Kim's hair?), what is not covered by insurance out of pocket, and Kim is determined to be a mother one day, and will be putting eggs into a fertility clinic for preservation. For those of you who do not know, chemotherapy has high rates of causing infertility. Between the money lost from not working, medical bills, and all else, it's looking to be a hard financial situation. Which is why I insisted on creating this GoFundMe.

Kim has endured so much in this lifetime. It's been a series of one event after the next, and her finding out she has cancer at 21 was definitely not what she wanted to be in the cards.

Thank you so much for either reading, donating or sharing. Your contribution means everything.