Maia’s Mighty Fight (Stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma)

This sweet young woman, Maia Gimm with her infectious smile was recently diagnosed on May 15th, 2020 with Stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma with Bulky Disease. (Which came as a huge shock as her uncle is already battling the exact same cancer.) She’s a 2019 graduate of Palmer High School & she just completed her freshman year of college at UAA with a 3.9 GPA and is working towards a masters degree in speech & language pathology. Maia was working as a tutor at Turning Leaf Literacy Center & had to stop due to obvious health challenges. She has completed her first round of chemotherapy which was three weeks long & has three more. Hopefully this will cure her cancer without further treatments. She has cancer in her lymph nodes, lower spine and a tumor to the left of her heart. She discovered a lump in her neck May 13th & went to work the 14th. Later that day she was pulled out of work by her mother Darjon (a long time Mat-Su School District employee) & her father Mike (A DOC employee) and they went to Providence for additional testing. She was told by the pediatric oncologist that she would need to stay overnight for a biopsy, CT scan, & EKG before she would be able to go home. Because Maia is over the age of 18 she could not have a visitor stay with her due to COVID-19. She was able to have her parents on the phone off and on but had to face these tough conversations alone. It is presumed the cancer has been there for three months. This situation has been very difficult and is weighing on her and her family emotionally and financially. She would love to continue her education in the fall but is unsure of the probability with medical bills starting to stack up. This fundraiser has been set up to ease the stress on Miss Mighty Maia & her family during this super challenging time. If you can donate it would be greatly appreciated. Maia felt uneasy about getting help with all of this because of her hard work ethic but, she has been reassured that we all want to ease her stress and help her win this fight! Thank you for your thoughts, prayers, donations, & love.