Robin Blakey. Through Friends We Find Strength

Have you ever been faced with not knowing how you'll take care of yourself, your bills, or your groceries? Can you imagine knowing there's a real chance that your body won't fight as hard as you need it to? And how do you wrap your head around the fact that you have a rare form of serious bladder cancer, you'll need extensive surgery, and the recovery time is a few months? This is the situation our friend Robin Blakey is currently facing.

Helping those in need is what we all should do; helping a true friend in need is what we need to do. Never one to ask for help, and always one to offer it, this is the time for Robin to focus 100% on her health and let all of us help her with her bills and her desire to remain living at home.

Robin's journey started this last summer when she experienced horrible, debilitating pain in her abdomen. After months of misdiagnosis, Robin finally was at the end of her rope and sought a second opinion, knowing this was definitely more than a UTI. She spent multiple days in the ER and the hospital where they treated her for a kidney infection, including inserting a tube into the kidney for drainage.

Finally, and unfortunately, her new doctor informed her the condition that she had been treated for all along was due to cancer, and not a kidney infection or UTI. After another surgery and an unsuccessful attempt to resection her bladder, Robin was sent home once again, with the advice to call an oncologist and book herself an appointment.

Without any clear direction, all kinds of unanswered questions and intolerable pain, Robin made the brave choice to drive herself 90 miles to the ER at UW Madison, so that she could be taken care of at a hospital that would help her with her pain, give her an opinion on treatment that she could trust, and actually have a plan to tackle this newfound diagnosis.

After being admitted to UW Hospital with a sepsis infection, Robin underwent another procedure to replace the kidney tube. While at University Hospital, Robin was also found to have a heart issue, possibly a leaky mitral valve. Robin is currently wearing a heart monitor to help diagnose the heart problem.

Although Robin is now being treated at one of the best hospitals in the nation, she has been extremely disappointed in Western medicine in the past. So, she will be pursuing holistic and homeopathic treatments and remedies as well as treatment from UW Health in Madison, WI. As she awaits results from the heart monitor, surgery to remove her bladder, lymph nodes, and lady bits is in the process of being scheduled. The surgery is extensive and if everything goes according to plan it will take seven to eight hours. Afterward, Robin faces a lengthy recovery of two to five months.

Your donation to Robin will mean so many things to her and help in more ways than one could ever imagine. It will help her to remain living in her home, take care of her bills that don't stop just because of cancer, and pursue treatment from UW Hospital along with holistic and homeopathic remedies. It will allow her to make sure that her basic living necessities are taken care of, and that she can remain independent for as long as possible.

For those of you who wish to send a card, her mailing address is:

Robin Blakey

PO Box 214

Camp Douglas, WI 54618