Hey Friends, 

As many of you know, I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma back in January of 2020. I completed six months of ABVD chemotherapy, during which the COVID pandemic hit 1/3 of the way in, effectively cutting us off from our support network. My final scans in July showed no evidence of disease, but around the end of October I started noticing some familiar symptoms. I went back in for another PET scan, and it confirmed the cancer is back. I have a 1.3cm node on my left shoulder, shocking everyone including my doctors. Arguably, this is much better than where we were when we first started as I had it all over my neck and a 7cm mass pressing against my vena cava nerve.  However, because it is back we need to treat it even more aggressively. I'll have 4 infusions, 3 weeks apart of a more targeted chemotherapy drug, and then sometime around April I will go in for an autologous stem cell transplant (SCT) where they'll blast me with high dose chemotherapy for a week, then give me back my own stem cells. The SCT is what is putting my fertility at risk.  While the jury is still out on autologous SCTs, analogous (where you get it from a donor) SCT have a near certain rate of infertility.  We originally looked into freezing my eggs in January before I started any treatment, but it would have put me in a position of atrophy as I started chemo and would have limited my exercise, something I couldn't cope without on top of the cancer.  Doing it before this time around was a no brainer, but were shocked to find my insurance does not cover it. While were approved through one organization, Heartbeat Fertility which helped with some of the medications, that was the only one we qualified for. 

So, we officially got the final tally for the fertility treatments: $10,120.

This ate up what remained of our rainy day fund and then some after the first round of treatments and the unexpected pandemic that left us on our own for the most part. With more treatment coming and in COVID times, and with no family within driving distance, finding ways to get help will be hard.  We luckily have amazing friends who have stepped up as much as they possibly can but there's still gaps to be filled. 

I would love it if we could go beyond our goal. In addition to the continued expected expenses of meeting my deductible in the new year, both Adam and I plan to (and have been strongly encouraged to do so) to take off work for about three-six months for my stem cell transplant, which will probably amount to about $40K in lost wages. 

In addition to making sure our mortgage and utilities are paid, any left overs from this fund will be used for: meals for when we just don't have the energy to make it, offloading household chores we can do outside our house, like laundry for when it gets to be too much (we really really struggled with this the first time around).  Then Adam will have more time to do the things that we can't have people come in the house to do, in addition to taking care of me and the puppies.  When the stem cell transplant comes around, we might have to pay for at least one of the puppies boarding during or shortly after my hospital stay to reduce the risk of infection.  If COVID is under control by the time I'm released from the hospital sometime around May, we hope to be able to have cleaning help (which is usually recommended in non-covid times) so we can further reduce the risk of infection, and with the hopes that we might bring the puppies home sooner and get Adam get back to work sooner. 

I sincerely appreciate any help you're able to give. I hope the new year brings in better luck than we've had this year, for us and all our loved ones.