Fighting Breast Cancer

6 years ago I had the great good fortune to meet a woman who had recently relocated to Sudbury from southern Ontario with her husband.  He is a Northern Ontarian and always wanted to return to the North.  She was a big city girl with a warm spot in her heart for the North.  They decided to leave the rat race behind and settled on Sudbury.  He started his own business as a home inspector and she came to work at Tim Horton's at HSN.  She started off at the main location and eventually wound up as the Supervisor in the Cancer Centre location. Over time Sherrie and I became extremely close friends and started doing all kinds of things together.  We got our husbands involved and thus began the friendship of a lifetime.  Weekends would find us going off on "adventures".  Road trips that would take us where ever the mood struck us.  The picture in fact, was taken on one of those legendary trips that found us stopping at a chip stand in Sturgeon Falls, before taking a circuitous route home.  We would get together on Saturday nights to play a few friendly rounds of Euchre. Things were really looking up for this wonderful, happy, kind, generous couple.  An awesome property fell into their laps and they moved out to Whanipitae.  The home inspection business was picking up and we had great times at their home.  Then J.P. got the news that he would finally be getting a much needed double knee replacement.  They were ready for this.  They had been waiting for this.  On a fateful day in November of 2018, the day they had been waiting for arrived. What they were not ready for was what happened.  J.P. came out of his surgery with flying colors.  We were so excited.  Then the bottom fell out of Sherrie's world.  Shortly after the surgery things changed.  J.P. was confused, disoriented and unable to remember things like his beloved cat 's name or where he was.  They quickly sent him for an MRI and what they thought was the worst was confirmed.  J.P. had suffered two strokes.  Trying to determine exactly where, a CT scan was next.  Not only had he suffered the strokes but a large mass was also discovered on his brain.  What went from  a routine double knee transplant with minimal hospital time and a relatively quick recovery with Sherrie missing a few weeks of work at best became many weeks of intensive rehabilitation and therapy and then another surgery to remove the mass. With that now done and J. P. once again undergoing some pretty intensive recovery, Sherrie was finally able to return to work.  Things had been tough.  J.P. had to stop working but that was OK because Sherrie was back to work and all was going to be well.  Oh but the story does not end here.  A routine check up sent Sherrie for a biopsy that came back with the worst possible news.  Breast Cancer.  The two words that strike fear into every woman's heart.  But Sherrie, being the incredibly strong woman that she is, said I am going to be fine. She was told she would need a mastectomy.  One breast would have to be removed.  That's OK right?  It's just fat tissue.  No big deal.   Well one breast and 13 lymph nodes later and the worst was confirmed.  Chemotherapy, Radiation Therapy and Hormone therapy would be required.  And many more weeks of unemployment.  My beautiful courageous friend is now in need of help.  She can no longer work.  She needs to not worry about bills.  She needs to rest and take care of herself and get well.  Please, I implore you, in the spirit of Christmas, if you can find it within yourselves and your budgets, please help this warrior to win the battle without worry.  Any donation will be gratefully appreciated.  On behalf of my wonderful friend, thank you.