After almost a year of progressively worsening symptoms and after numerous tests that did not reveal much, we were forced to visit the emergency room in late November 2016.  Marlene been having trouble eating and retaining large amounts of fluid.  At the ER they drained 4 liters of fluid from her abdominal cavity and we went home.  Two days later we were notified that cells in the fluid indicated that she had cancer, and was no longer able to eat or drink by mouth.  An endoscopy a day later revealed that her stomach was completely blocked, and immediately hospitalized to allow for intravenous nutrition.  She had lost nearly 20 pounds by this time.  Marlene is 5’-8” tall and normal weight about 128, so this was a lot of weight loss which made her very, very weak.  After a couple of weeks in the hospital at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital and Stanford Hospital, it was confirmed that she has advanced stage ovarian cancer.

Treatment is 9 weeks of chemo therapy, then an evaluation and very likely surgery, followed with another 9 weeks of chemo therapy after recovering from surgery.  Surgery will be at Stanford Hospital.
Funds will be used to assist with the out of pocket medical costs and travel expenses to Stanford Hospital, certain items of home health care that are not covered by normal health insurance, to ease the burden on our family and to allow family members to take unpaid leave from work to assist with Marlene’s care.

 Any funds donated that are not needed for Marlene’s out of pocket expenses, will be turned over to the Sonoma County Fire Chief’s Association into a fund for assistance of catastrophic medical expenses for other Sonoma County fire family folks.

Thank you so much for your support.  Prayers are also greatly appreciated.