Memories for Mom

We’ll try and keep this short because if there's one thing we’ve learned in the past week, it's that time is precious and finite. 

Last June we received some news that has become all too familiar for our family over the last 20 years. It was our mom telling us she was diagnosed with cancer for a third time. Three times, three different set of circumstances. Breast, uterine and now kidney. This diagnosis was promising and after having her kidney removed we thought she might finally catch a break. That was short lived. The very first scan following her surgery revealed the cancer had returned, this time in the lungs. 
More tests and a biopsy revealed that she has medullary renal cell carcinoma. We’ll spare you the medical lingo. It's one of the rarest and most aggressive forms of cancer there is. When you combine that with what her doctor says are other forms of cancer mutations they've never really seen before, it's not a great recipe. 
She recently completed four rounds of immunotherapy at Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston. Hesitant yet hopeful, we prayed for a miracle or at the very least some good news that her tumors had stabilized or better yet shrunk. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Our mom's latest scan indicated the cancer has not only grown in the lungs, but also spread to other parts of her body. 
The game plan now is that she'll try another drug next week, in hopes of buying her some more time. There is such little information on the cancer she has, and even fewer treatment options. Wednesday was one of the toughest phone calls of our life, hearing the doctor tell my mom she has on average 18 months left to live. It hurts to even type that sentence.
This is why we’re writing her story in hopes of adding a few more chapters while she still has the drive and energy to push on. 

We get our love of travel from our mom. She instilled it in us from a young age. We've been fortunate enough to travel to some pretty great places, but there's one place that she still wants to check off her bucket list. Norway! Don't ask us why. Our parents planned a trip to Norway last year, but when the diagnosis came in June, it threw a huge wrench into that plan and they had to scrap it. They tried again to go this May, but the unforeseen circumstances of coronavirus put that on the shelf as well. 
If there's one thing we’d love to give our mom, it's the gift of a few more experiences with our Dad while there's still time. 

We’d love to send them to Norway and wherever else so they can pile up as many memories as possible. In starting this campaign, we’re hoping to relieve some of the financial burden that comes with the constant hospital visits and while also trying to see the world. She deserves it. 

We’ve seen a lot of Go Fund Me pages from friends and strangers over the years and admittedly there's been times we felt detached from the situation. We’d always come back to the notion of: “what if we were the one’s reaching out for help”.

Now we are.

Please donate, share and believe. Please help us give our mom the sendoff she deserves. 

Thank you, 

Jesse and Jamison Coyle