Nicole MacHattie’s Cancer Fighting Fund

#FightofHerLife #HelpNicoleKickCancer

Friends, family, colleagues, loved ones: As the only surviving parent to her two children, my friend Nicole MacHattie has recently been diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer and is fighting for her life. Please read her story and consider making a donation. Alternative treatments in the US are her only hope of survival. Any donation, large or small, will help. Thank you.

In April 2021, Nicole MacHattie was diagnosed with Stage 3 Colon Cancer. She had to break this news to her children (14 and 16 years old). Making the news even more devastating was that the children had already lost their father. When one parent dies it’s devastating but when you’re the remaining single parent and you’re diagnosed with cancer, it’s a family’s worst nightmare.

In October 2018, Nicole’s husband of 17 years died of suicide. He was a beautiful man with an incredible intelligence working as a PhD Geologist at the Department of Natural Resources. After several years of mental health issues and the lack of mental health programs it all became too much for him to handle. Nicole lost her best friend and had to break the news to her then 13-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter that their father had died.

After her late husband’s suicide, their life insurance was declined, even though they had the policy for almost ten years. Nicole engaged a lawyer and is still fighting, four years later, for the proceeds; the trial is set for April 2024. Not only was her husband’s policy voided, but hers as well.

Post initial diagnosis, Nicole was immediately scheduled for chemo, which began in June 2021 until the end of August 2021. She was scheduled for surgery in September to remove a 7cm tumour on the right side of her colon along with the removal of second section of the left side of her colon. In the end, the surgeon also removed ten lymph nodes, a section of her large intestine, and a slice of her uterus. Everyone was relieved to hear that, although the surgery was challenging, it went really well, and the results came back with zero margins of cancer. They felt confident the cancer was all removed.

In January 2022, only four months after surgery, she went for a routine follow up scan, fully expecting to still be cancer free. She received devastating news—the cancer was back and had spread aggressively to all four quadrants of her liver and to a lymph node in the celiac region. She was told she was now Stage 4. Her surgeon told her that her cancer was no longer curable and inoperable—but Nicole refused to believe that. She started researching other options. She resumed chemo but was told the odds were against her and that chemo was only to try to control the cancer and extend her life. Not save it.

Leaving her children parentless is not an option. She began researching alternative treatments aggressively, discovering many cancer fighting supplements and superfoods she had been unaware of and began incorporating these tools (largely ignored by medical professionals) to help starve the cancer. Knowing that, although helpful, food and supplements wouldn’t be enough, she began calling clinics in the US and Mexico to see what they had to offer—versus being told there is nothing much they can do for her in Canada.

These clinics offer the hope she is looking for, but at a hefty cost. Unable to work and without the insurance payout from her husband’s death, the cost of these treatments (testing, creation of a treatment plan, flights, accommodations, cost of the treatments, general living expenses) will be impossible without fundraising.

Nicole has found several integrative clinics in both the US and Mexico, narrowed it down to two clinics in the US; the Dana Farber in Boston and Envita Cancer Clinic in Arizona. Potential treatment options include a combination of:

A highly successful treatment of Y90 to target her liver tumours, cost approximately 50,000 CAD

Stem cell transplant, which is the best chance of curing cancer, cost approximately $190,000 CAD

The treatment costs noted above do not include the three months of testing, integrative treatments, doctors appts, and follow ups which will cost approximately $175,000 CAD, plus cost of additional drugs/supplements needed post treatment while back at home, approximately $85,000 CAD.

She’s fighting for her life. To be here for her children. Please consider donating what you can.