This fundraiser is for my wife of 30 years, Kat Hopkins, to help me care for her in the last weeks of her life and to help honor her wishes and give her the memorial service she asked for and deserves. Let me share her story with you. Kat is now in end-stage and home hospice. This is a long story...

In 2011 Kat was diagnosed with breast cancer after finding a lump on the left side. She immediately had a lumpectomy with negative margins followed by both radiation and a full cycle of chemotherapy. As the surgery showed negative margins and she completed both radiation and chemo she was able to get back to life as normal by the middle of 2012 and we hoped that this would be the end of this. She had regular testing with her oncologists including scans and bloodwork and was kept on systemic therapy medications following the treatments.

All was well for a while and we started to breathe a bit more easily until the fall of 2013 came around. In 2013 Kat was back to work, life had fallen back into the routine, our daughter was pregnant with our twin grandsons, good things were coming...

Kat had what, at first, looked like a grand mal seizure at work. I was on my way home from work when this happened and my phone started ringing off the hook. I arrived at Kat's place of work as they were bringing her out into the ambulance and followed her to the hospital with our son. As someone with no history of seizure disorder, they ran a CT scan and then an MRI on her brain to look for possible causes. They found a tumor on the top of her brain, about midsection between the two lobes, and immediately referred us to a brain surgeon.

The next morning Kat was transferred from our local hospital to Wilkes Barre General where further tests were run to prepare her for surgery. The surgeon was very clear that this was a high-risk procedure and that there was a chance she would not come out of it. She was on the table for almost 12 hours that day. The initial surgical plan needed to be changed once they opened her skull as the tumor had fractured/crumbled some and they needed to come at it with a different approach. Brain tumors and surgeries are different than something like a lumpectomy in that you can't try for negative margins because that's live brain tissue. She came out of the surgery like a warrior, woke the next morning, and spent the next 9 days in the hospital recovering. They confirmed, through biopsy, that this was a metastasis of her breast cancer into her brain. She was released and after some time to heal she had her first cycle of tomotherapy (focused radiation) on her brain to make sure that there were no cancer cells left after the surgery. Recovery from this was not easy at all. I wound up working from home for a bit for the company I worked for then and then had to resign in order to care for her. Was a solid few months before she was as recovered as she was going to be from this. She took it in stride and we moved on... albeit now with the need for regular brain MRIs added to her testing schedule. As things seem to do after a while life started to return to normal again.

Regular scans every 4 months, added PET Scans to ensure the disease had not metastasized into other areas, systemic therapy through daily medications, and on we went however this was the start of the decrease in her quality of life. The surgery and consequent radiation had their effect and Kat started to suffer from four-limb idiopathic neuropathy. So more medication to try and counter this...

We went on with life, spent time with our grandsons, went to lots of concerts with all of our friends across the country in the music family we're a part of... tried to get back to life. All went well until 2015 when we went for the scan results and were told they found another tumor. This one was in the dura (the lining around your brain) on the right side and she would need another brain surgery. We got her down to Regional hospital in Scranton and she went under the knife again. I almost lost my mind this time because an hour or so after the scheduled start time a nurse comes to get me and says the doctor wants to speak with you... after she had been on the table for 12 hours the first time I thought the worst had happened... happily I was wrong and this surgery was so much faster because of the location of this tumor and the stealth type surgery this doctor performed. She was already in recovery when he called for me... still, they should start with "she's fine, the doctor wants to see you" or something...

Have I mentioned that Kat is the strongest person I know yet? What an absolute difference from the first surgery. She was up and walking the same day and was discharged the very next day. Recovery at home also went faster this time and again we were in for another cycle of tomotherapy on this area of her brain. She recovered but the neuropathy got worse and we also started to see a bit of what would, in the end, turn out to be cognitive decline but at this point, it was more like brain fog. Still, we fell back into as much of a routine as we could for a while. Unfortunately, Kat did not return to work after this second surgery. Realistically, with the neuropathy, it was simply not an option.

2016 almost destroyed me mentally. In 2016 Kat had a new metastasis in her brain three times, basically every test. As she'd already had two craniotomies and due to the locations of these new tumors surgery was not an option anymore. She had three full cycles of focused radiation in 2016 and each one, while 'successful' in getting the tumors, took a bit more out of her, increased the neuropathy and pain with it, took away more of her... It was a very hard year and I honestly would not be here without the love and support of our music family. I can't stress that enough. We have an army behind us and they have done more for us through this than I will ever be able to equal. I will be paying it forward for the rest of my life, this I guarantee.

This year they also started her on a new (to her) systemic medication that would hopefully prevent any other metastasis from occurring. Did you know that regular chemotherapy treatments do not get into the brain? The size of the medications (on a molecular level) is too large to get through the blood/brain barrier so while chemo can prevent metastasis in the rest of the body it does not get into the brain.

Things were good for a while. I have been working from home since the first metastasis in 2013, although for a different company than the one I was working for, so I can be here to care for her. We went a few years this time without any bad news. The cognitive decline continued getting worse along with the neuropathy but we got as close to back to normal as we were able. Got back out to shows with our friends and enjoyed our time with our children and grandchildren. Tried to live life in the moment.

At the end of September 2019, we came home from a weekend away to find that the most recent test showed activity in all the previous areas in her brain as well as new metastases. Focused radiation was no longer an option so the only thing left to us was the ace in the hole, so to speak, of whole-brain radiation. To be honest, this is one of the few times Kat broke down... she's been through so much that she was almost not able to even go in for the first treatment. She again proved how strong she really is and pushed through the treatments. This treatment hit her so much harder than the others and it was apparent pretty quickly. The recovery itself was far longer, her hair never really came back, we didn't think the neuropathy could get worse but it did, and the cognitive decline was far worse now. She still soldiered on... my little samurai held up her sword and kept fighting.

In November of 2019, Kat got sick. Her immune system was already suppressed from the radiation and the systemic meds she takes and she got what we thought initially was bronchitis. She was treated with medication from her doctor but it didn't get better and, on my 50th birthday, I rushed her to the hospital as her fever was almost 104. She literally argued with me about this cause she 'didn't want to ruin my birthday.' She was in the hospital for 10 days with double pneumonia and we almost lost her. She was on oxygen at home for a month and was on lockdown long before everyone else and the pandemic. Retrospectively, we believe she had COVID at that time but it was long before they would have tested for it. They also found a spot in her lung when she was in the hospital but initially thought it was related to pneumonia and scheduled a follow-up scan for a couple of months to be sure it cleared.

Then came the pandemic... while she recovered from the pneumonia she could not leave the house for risk of contracting the virus. All of the things we would do to try to get back to normal and live our lives were not there. No chance to go see a show or visit our music family... no normal... and now that things are starting to get back to open it's too late. This also made it impossible for her to get to the follow-up scan on her lung as it was deemed too much of a risk to go to a hospital in the early months of 2020.

By June they deemed it safe enough for her to carefully go in for testing so the MRIs resumed along with the scan on her lungs. The area in her lung was not from pneumonia but instead another metastasis of the breast cancer and there were a few more spots. Her brain MRIs were not good as well. All of the areas showed growth, minimal but progressing.

Before the holidays in 2020 we started to see further symptoms of the disease in her brain. Out of nowhere, she would lose all balance and all strength on her left side. This resulted in a few falls and almost a broken ankle. Her radiation oncologist started treating this with medrol steroid packs which worked in the moment... meaning that while she was taking them she didn't have the episodes but a day or two after the regimen finished we had another occurrence. By the new year he had switched her over to a regular daily steroid as the issue here was that all of the treatments on her brain, along with the disease, was starting to cause swelling in her brain which was causing the episodes.

In January of this year we had her final MRI and at the start of February we got the results which showed the same as the other tests through 2020. Growth in all areas in her brain without any other possible treatments that would help. The whole-brain radiation did nothing for this and that was the last shot. This was also obvious as the swelling continued to progress and she continued to have less and less use of her legs and balance as well as significant decreases in her ability to think or follow instructions to keep her safe. The doctor was very clear and transparent that she was in end-stage now and that prognostication for a time frame was impossible, especially for someone like Kat who has fought so hard for so long. He said 6 months to 2 years but also said it could be far sooner.

We started home hospice for Kat a week or so later and we've made constant changes to our living space to do everything we can to keep her comfortable and safe. She frequently forgets her limitations and we've had to work with that to protect her from the lack of memory and how it affects her. I've been doing what I can to keep working (and my employer is very understanding and has been working with me as much as possible) while I care for her but we're at the point where it isn't enough. She needs my care full time now and I need to spend that time with her. We've seen a lot of decline in the last couple of weeks and I feel she's coming close to her final weeks with us. I'll still always bet on the fight in her but she's tired, in pain, wiped out, and even the strongest of us eventually runs out of fuel.

This GoFundMe is in place to allow me to be able to take a leave of absence from work and still keep the lights on, give her everything she wants in her final days with us, and help pay for her final expenses and memorial. To be clear, I do not want to ask for help. We have a wonderful support system and so much has been done for us over the years without ever asking but now I have to ask because I have to be there with her and I have to honor her wishes. I thank everyone in advance for any help and ask you to please keep her in your thoughts and prayers and please share this if you're able.

All of the love,

Guy