May 2023 marked a joyous occasion of Liz and Justin’s youngest son, Stirling, graduating high school. However, soon after the joy turned to stress when Liz was diagnosed with Stage 4 Metastatic Rectal Cancer. The summer turned into a series of doctor appointments, surgery, and the start of 38 rounds of radiation and chemo. In the December of 2023, her follow-up PET/CT scan showed that the pelvis/rectal area was clear, but the cancer had moved to her lungs. After 6 more rounds of chemo, Vanderbilt found it has spread even more and gave her the news of only clinical trials as her last hope. On July 2, she traveled to Sloan Kettering in NY to hear the news that Immune Therapy was her only hope to buy time seeing how the chemo had already failed. Hearing these words is pretty devastating to anyone. Knowing each day is a blessing and wondering how many days are left to come.

Then, to add to the stress, 2 weeks ago a deer T-Boned her car on the way to work. All the airbags went off and the insurance company totaled her car but only paid a third of what they owe. This has really broken her.

She has been lucky to be well enough to work for the past 7 months, but now only has 3 days left of PTO. As she starts this next round of treatments, she is guessing she will be having to be off work more than 3 days, shorting her paycheck. She has been working as many hours as she can but she is tired both physically and mentally.

Currently they owe more than $10,000 in medical bills, their insurance starts a new year in October and that will mean another $5,000 deductible. The cost to go to her appointments in Evansville IN is about $75 a trip. Last year, over 15,000 miles was driven for her treatments. Thankfully her mother-in-law has been able to drive while she slept so Justin could work, as he is limited on PTO also. The travels and miles are keeping them living on a very tight budget and barely getting by. Plus, now they need to find a cheap, reliable car so she can get to work and appointments and hopefully get to see her parents, daughter, and grandkids.

For those her know her personally, you all know she works hard, she loves her job and life as a Rad/CT Tech and being in the medical field. She loves to help others and will continue to do so as long as she can. As a family they have helped raised over $100,000 for a Colorado Make a Wish with a kickball team. Many meals have been served at Ronald McDonald’s house, and many other events they have donated their time and money. They would not have changed that a bit!

She is saddened to have been put in this position. We hope this helps get some stress off her body and mind to give this fight a fair chance. Justin, Liz, and all family and friends thank each and every person who is able to donate.