Help Mom fight cancer!

My mother, Debra Goldgehn, is known and loved by many. She has a kind soul that I always gathered inspiration from and looked up to when I was growing up. My mom was also a lot of peoples moms. She would take my friends in, when no one else would. She would love them like her own, and always have a smile on her face when she did it. My mom has the biggest heart I've ever known to exist. As a lover of nature and history she tirelessly volunteers her time at the local state parks, whether it be open hearth cooking demonstrations, leading groups at the Etowah Indian Mounds candlight tours, or bringing lunch to the many other volunteers that support the park programs. If there was one person on this earth I could choose to be everyone's role model, it would be my mother.

Unfortunately, at the beginning of January, my mom fell ill, and started having back and hip pain which slowed her down. My mom has always been healthy as a horse, so she didn't think anything of it and rested at home and waited to get better. As the weeks passed, she continued to be in more pain, became dehydrated and lost all appetite, resulting in drastic weight loss. February 4th, we asked a family friend to take her to urgent care and make sure she was ok (since my sister and I live out of state).

My mom arrived to urgent care and they checked her blood pressure which was barely readable. So they rushed her to the ER by ambulance, and we found out she was having kidney failure and was severely dehydrated. In order to get her kidneys functioning, they put in stents in her kidney to her bladder to try and get through the blockage, which seemed to have worked and was making things better. A few scans later, we found out she has neuroendocrine tumors in her liver, abdomen, and in her thyroid, which are cancerous. We are unsure where her cancer started, and are waiting on an octreotide scan to be done to find out.

While she seemed to have been stable enough to be sent home and to start her journey fighting cancer, two weeks after she was sent home, her kidneys started failing again and she was admitted back into the hospital.   She had catheters placed into her kidneys and is still in the hospital and on her way to recovery. She has now started her cancer treatments of Sandostatin shots 3 times a day.

We are still learning about her cancer, and we have no idea how long her recovery time will be or how much her medical bills are going to accumulate over time even with her health insurance. My sister and I both live out of state (I live in Colorado, my sister lives in New York) and have had to travel back and forth to help give her care, and in doing so have not been able to work. So we are doing this fundraiser hoping we can stay on top of her medical bills and help all of us get back on our feet again so we can focus on the task at hand - kicking some cancer butt!   Every little bit helps in putting our lives back together through this challenging time. We have had awesome friends here to help us, and lots of support from everywhere. If there's anyone in this world that deserves this, it's our mom, who knows and has continuously demonstrated the true meaning of unconditional love. Thank you everyone for your given and future support. I will update as her journey continues.