Let’s Help Alli Beat Cancer!!

Let me introduce you to this woman. I have never met a stronger, kinder, more accomplished, and beautiful human. These are only a few things to describe my dear friend, Alli DeFrancesco.

Senior year of college at NYU, Alli was diagnosed with refractory Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She cancelled her plans of graduate school and immediately began treatment that included extensive chemotherapy, radiation and a bone marrow transplant. A year after finishing treatment, tragedy struck when her college swim coach, Lauren Beam, passed away at age 32 from colon cancer. After attending her memorial service, Alli decided to pay it forward and raise awareness for young adult cancer by swimming the English Channel. On August 28, 2013, Alli did just that, and became the first Italian woman to do so.

Alli recalls doctors advising her, “…you’ll get twelve good years.”

Like clockwork, in February of this year, Alli was diagnosed with triple positive breast cancer. After receiving chemotherapy to reduce the cancer, she had the first major surgery to remove her breast and latissimus muscle. During surgery, however, doctors discovered that the cancer had spread and it was a heterogeneous sample: metastatic breast cancer. She would need more treatment before they did the same operation on the other side. More time away from work, more uncertainty, more of a fight.

And so, I decided to start a GoFundMe for Alli and her young children, Reagan and Penn: her little miracles.

The cost of cancer can be extensive. It is not just limited to medical bills, but transportation to and from treatment and other costs of living, including time away from work which cannot be valued.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this and share with your community. As we all know, without your health, you have nothing. And Reagan and Penn would not have their mother. It truly does take a village. Whatever you can give I know will fill Alli with gratitude, appreciation and hope.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Kiki