Hi, I am starting this Go Fund Me in support of my very dear friend Paulina Backstrom.

She has been furiously fighting Stage 4 Thymoma since 2019. Thymoma is a rare cancer. She was also diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, which is a rare autoimmune disorder that often accompanies Thymoma and attacks the muscle and nerve connections in your body. She has had multiple surgeries (including open chest surgery), hospital stays, radiation, several rounds of chemo. Now, after an episode of myositis that started in November and landed her in the hospital for almost a week, her medical team is telling her that to control or maintain the cancer she will need to be on chemo indefinitely. Despite the hurdles and setbacks, Paulina is determined to fight harder to bring her body back to a healthy state. She was always a health conscious person before the cancer diagnosis and continues to strive to feed her body the right fuel for the battle. She is working with both conventional and naturopathic oncologists to fight from every angle. She is trying to learn as much as possible about this rare form of cancer because there really is not a lot of information about it.

Since December 7th, she has had to make almost weekly trips to get care from her complex medical team. This means driving 6 hours each way, three weeks out of the month for chemotherapy infusions along with taking daily chemo pills. Through this all, Paulina has remained faithful, strong, generous, kind, full of spirit and most of all hopeful. She does not want to accept that this is her final diagnosis. She does not want to accept that there are not other options for her. She does not want to accept that this is the end of her story. She knows in her heart that she still has so much to give to this world. She wants to keep fighting. But, she and her family need help. She has had to dramatically cut back hours of work to accommodate the extra travel and down days from chemo treatments.

Paulina's family is blessed to have insurance for much of the conventional treatments but insurance does not cover the travel and hotel stays while she is getting chemo nearly every week. Insurance does not cover the healthy groceries that she buys so that she can feed her body healing foods. Insurance does not cover the recommended naturopathic and alternative options that offer more promising long term results, which there are many. Those treatments are expensive, and frankly out of reach for most people on their own. But, this is what community is all about. Being there for others when they need us. Paulina has so many dreams. She wants to inspire people with her story and give hope to others who are given terminal diagnoses. She wants to heal what doctors tell her is incurable. She wants to see her children graduate, get married and start families of their own. She wants to open a juice shack and share her love for making healing juice and food with everyone else. There are so many reasons for her to keep fighting.

Paulina will be turning 40 in May. She has been through too much for someone that young. She has 3 wonderful children. She is a mother, wife, aunt, daughter, sister, friend. She knows God has a bigger plan for her. She just needs support. Please help me to support her and alleviate some of her stress from this challenging time. Every bit will go towards helping her continue to fight the beast and hopefully open doors to new treatment options that wouldn't otherwise be possible for her. There are so many new discoveries for cancer treatments out there but unfortunately the insurance companies are not up to speed with them. We appreciate every contribution , big or small , to support Paulina, her husband Jesse and their children.

If you would like to read more about Paulina's journey she has a blog: backwoodspauli.com

Thank you so much