Hi friends,

My name is Isabel and I'm proud to call myself a "friend of Paula's" and one of her biggest fans. We met when both Lily and Estelle were about 8 months old at our local park on Perth Avenue in the Junction (Toronto). We started talking about motherhood and life, she gifted me some baby bum cream to help with small troubles and the rest is history. Her porch was my porch and vice versa, and an open-door policy has been in effect since then.

Paula is the most hopeful and positive person I know. Her life stories are deep, worldly, fun and full of twists and turns. I wish everyone could hear them; my kids' eyes always shine brighter with Paula around.

I also wish Breast Cancer wasn't the central story these days, but it is, and I'd like us to lessen the burden of this specific twist and turn.

You can click HERE to go to her blog and uncover information on her diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer but in a nutshell, Paula has been in treatment for the past two years, working hard to gain stability in this chronic disease. She has had a few setbacks on the way that have been very challenging. Her next step, on the advice of her oncologist, is to have additional genetic testing done to determine any additional mutations that will help direct her to her next line of treatment and any clinical trials available based on the results. Unfortunately, this is not covered by OHIP nor is it covered by her benefits package. The cost of this is up to $7,000.

I am hoping we can come together to support Paula with a donation you are comfortable with. Any additional funds raised over and above will go directly to additional therapy that Paula is doing especially where her benefits have already tapped out. As Paula embarks forward on this next phase, she will be documenting everything from her own experiences to shared research on treatments and most importantly, discussing how to normalize cancer in general and take the fear away from metastatic cancer.

Thank you for reading and considering.