Hi, everyone. I’m Kari and have been married to my wonderful husband, Mike, for almost 29 years. We have two adult children, Abbey, and Connor. We also have a son-in-law, Dalton, who joined our family in 2021. On April 18th, I was diagnosed with an aggressive bile duct cancer.

My journey began on March 29th (Good Friday) after an ultrasound identified my gall bladder was in bad shape after a gall bladder attack and needed to come out that day. I ended up having it removed that evening with a stay overnight at the Fergus Falls Lake Region Hospital. We are thankful for the quick work of the Surgeon and Staff. On April 18th at 6pm I received a call from my Surgeon letting me know that they had sent my gall bladder to the Mayo Clinic due to some irregularities. The Mayo Clinic confirmed it was cancer. I was surprised and shocked to hear this news as I’ve been recovering well and have been overall healthy over the years. My energy levels had been down but didn’t think anything of it. The concern is that the cancer was also in my bile duct. Bile duct cancer is an aggressive cancer if not contained and addressed quickly. We give glory to God that I had a gall bladder attack to remove the initial cancer. The surgeon had shared that my body had started to build a wall of tissue around my gall bladder to protect my other organs. After the shock wore off, we began the next steps of blood tests and CT scans. Currently, there is no visual signs of additional cancer from the tests and scans. However, there is concern that the cancer in the gall bladder may have impacted my liver and may have continued down the bile duct. The bile duct had cancer down to the cut the Surgeon made during surgery. I’m still waiting to hear back on the final recommendation, but the Oncologist and Surgeon believe the recommendation will be to do additional surgery to remove part of my liver and bile duct. When they are conducting the surgery, they will look for other signs of cancer. People who know me, know that I lean on God to help me make the right decisions and I like to make a plan to seek out all options before I make a final decision. As I learned this additional news, I began researching and reaching out to trusted friends/colleagues on what alternative cancer treatments are available. Unfortunately, many of these alternative options are not covered by our health care insurance. After talking to a couple of facilities, I’ve decided to sign up for the 3-week program at Hope4Cancer in Mexico. I leave on 5/15 and will be back on 6/6. They provide a non-toxic and holistic approach to validating if I have any cancer cells remaining, target to kill the cancer cells, help me identify root cause, and put a plan together to heal completely and to take steps to prevent it from happening again. I’m taking this path to hopefully reduce or eliminate the need for additional surgery. This alternative treatment along with other medical expenses, lab work, and scans, we estimate will be $40,000-$60,000 out of pocket this year. This GoFundMe has been set up with the hopes to raise at least half of some of the costs that we have coming out of pocket for this program and our medical bills. I appreciate any prayers that we get answers and a clear path to healing completely. Thank you for any support you can provide in this time of need for me to focus on the treatment and my family.