Friday, November 17, 2023.
"Dr. Wiese, at this point, can we say that Bradley has cancer?"
"There's nothing else this could possibly be."
I am Karra, and I am the only-parent mother of 13-year-old Bradley. I have been his only parent since the day he was born. I raised him alone. I completed an undergraduate degree and began and finished a graduate degree while doing it. But this is not a story about how hard my situation was and how I handled it perfectly.
That is not what happened.
Before November 2023, I had been in recovery from substance use disorder for six months.
Bradley was diagnosed on a Friday. By Monday, they were placing his Mediport. I could not take it. I returned to substance use almost immediately. Within two weeks, I was in inpatient psychiatric care, and then inpatient rehab. Because of my own medical needs, Bradley needed to stay with my sister.
Bradley was diagnosed with B-ALL (“B” cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia). I was told, as gently as possible, that if your child has to have cancer, this is the one you'd want them to have. One doctor told me that he was going to be fine. And I held onto that. It gave my brain a framework. Struggle, yes, but a known path. Predictable.
And then the spring of 2024 happened.
I noticed Bradley wasn't behaving at baseline and took him in for a sick visit. His clinician told me his symptoms were expected based on where he was in treatment.
She was wrong.
Two days later, Bradley was admitted directly into the pediatric intensive care unit. He had necrotizing pancreatitis, developed severe sepsis and liver failure. At one point, I was told he would likely need a liver transplant. The medical team defied the odds and saved his life without him needing one. In total he was hospitalized for five weeks. The recovery from that trauma continues.
His treatment timeline was set back. The medication that caused the reaction was removed from his protocol entirely. I was sober during that time, but I wasn't okay. I was dissociating.
Later that spring, Bradley’s hair came back. And then later that summer, it fell out again. At that point, we learned there would be yet another change to his chemotherapy protocol, and it would extend his treatment. We had been planning on, and looking forward to, Bradley going back to school in September 2024—literally and as a metaphor for moving forward. We had been so isolated for so long. That door closed with the change in protocol.
I had lost the will to live.
On an October day in 2024, I tried to go to sleep with the intent of never waking up. About 30 hours later, I woke up. Angry. And ready to surrender. I thought, "Well, if I can't die, I guess I have to figure out how to live." I called an ambulance myself and went to inpatient psychiatric care.
I was glad to have a place where I could be safe. But the traditional explanations and the traditional fixes—I wasn't buying them. At one point I told my clinician, "I just want to go sit by a stream in Colorado and look at the mountains." He said, "That's not the kind of thing we offer."
So I made Colorado happen. The system told me no, and I told myself yes.
In November 2024, I checked into a wellness retreat outside of Denver, Colorado.
During my arrival interview, I mentioned my substance use disorder and Bradley's cancer. The person interviewing me said, "That's a lot to sit with."
I said, "I haven't been sitting with it."
He said, "That's a lot not to sit with, too."
And *that's* when it hit me: the meaning of life.
Life is just this. It’s this moment. That’s all we have. And I can be drunk and take Bradley for lumbar punctures or I can be not drunk and take Bradley for lumbar punctures. Either way, if I am going to live, there will be lumbar punctures.
I allowed myself to feel it. All of it. And then I went back home and got to work.
Getting to work looked like returning to outpatient substance use disorder counseling. It looked like reestablishing trust with my family—which included a portable breathalyzer with facial recognition and tamper detection technology that Bradley and my family knew about. It looked like interventional psychiatry. It looked like working with a family therapist in addition to my individual therapist. It looked like getting Bradley set up with his own individual therapist.
It looked like accountability.
It looked like acknowledging hurt.
It looked like telling the truth and finally sitting with it.
Since then, I have successfully completed outpatient counseling and Bradley and I wrapped up family therapy. I've stopped using the breathalyzer, but only after Bradley's consent.
Pediatric cancer has a way of making people show up. And we are grateful—deeply grateful—for every meal that was paid for, every kind word, every foundation that has supported us. During treatment, various foundations and wonderful, individual humans have helped cover our necessities, and that support has meant everything. But it ends when treatment ends. And treatment ends in May.
Kids with cancer are seen. Especially when they are bald. What people don't always see is the person or people standing next to the sick child. They are often invisible. This GoFundMe is, in part, about making parents visible. Making me visible.
Both Bradley and I are disabled. I receive SSDI. Our immediate needs like housing, food, healthcare, and transportation are covered. We are grateful that the US’ social safety net caught us when it misses, and deliberately refuses to catch, so many others. But there is not much left over. There is no room in our budget for the celebration that this moment calls for.
Bradley is thirteen years old. He lost his grandmother when he was four. He spent the first ten years of his life in the only home he'd ever known, and then lost that too. His only parent struggled with substance use disorder throughout his childhood. And then came the diagnosis.
What makes Bradley who he is, and what makes who I am, is our courage—not our bravery. Our audacity to be ourselves, mess included. We do not hide our pain, our anger, or our hope. We will not shout our anger and whisper our kindness: we unabashedly scream for both.
Bradley is about to ring a bell. So am I.
Here is what funds will be used for:
Private bell ringing party — $2,500
Larger community bell ringing party — $5,000
Forest Trail Academy online accredited tuition, 2026-2027 school year — $3,669
Reason and Rationality Conference, New Jersey — $4,300, plus travel and lodging
National Parks road trip — two legs: out west late summer, then the eastern parks in spring — TBD
We have made the decision to transition Bradley to Forest Trail Academy, an accredited online school, for the 2026-2027 school year. This will allow us to travel, to decompress, and for Bradley to just be a kid who is no longer in treatment—on our terms and on our timeline.
All funds will go to in Bradley's irrevocable supplemental needs trust. Any remaining funds will remain in the trust for Bradley's ongoing care and wellbeing.
A note on how funds will be received: Donations will go to a separate checking account maintained by my sister, Kellie Barrett, who will be listed as the beneficiary on this fundraiser. Kellie will transfer the funds directly to Bradley's supplemental needs trust via check. Because Bradley receives Medicaid and SSI, and because I receive Medicaid, funds cannot be deposited directly into my account without affecting his benefits, and I cannot be listed as a beneficiary. This structure ensures his care remains protected.
We are not asking because we are in crisis. We are asking because we made it. Because Bradley is about to finish two and a half years of chemotherapy. Because I am sober and present and have done the work. Because our family went to therapy together and told the truth and is still standing.
We have the audacity to tell the truth. We always have. You will not find any stories written by us or approved by us that say we never complained. We complained when it was appropriate. We held space for gratitude when it felt right. We are human.
And the truth is that it's time to celebrate.
We'd love for you to be part of it.
