Support Shirley's Fight Against Leukemia

My name is Anne, and I have had the privilege of having our amazing Shirley as my friend for over 15 years. To know Shirley is to be in awe of her. She is smart, hard-working, fun, and one of the best people I know. She has been through hell and back the last 10 years, but she still shows up for her family. She still shows up for her friends. She still shows up, always with a big smile on her face and an awful lot of love in her heart. Unfortunately, our wonderful friend Shirley is also sick.

Shirley was diagnosed with a fairly serious form of leukemia in the last 2 weeks. She went to the Duke Cancer Center earlier this week for a second opinion, and now things are moving very quickly, including starting oral chemotherapy next week and starting the process of finding a bone marrow transplant donor.

This is where Shirley needs our help. She recently became jobless (which is a whole other story). Even if she had a job, she is unable to work right now because of a compromised immune system and the eventual bone marrow transplant. She still has bills to pay, she will have lots of medical expenses and living expenses overall. In addition to that, Cassidy was accepted into Meredith University to start in the fall. Shirley would sell a kidney to ensure she had the money to pay for college expenses not covered by her scholarship award. She would never want her to miss that opportunity.

Anything that you can donate would be appreciated and very helpful. We will post updates at least once a week and certainly let everybody know once it’s time to start testing people to see if they are a match for Shirley’s bone marrow transplant.

Thank you so much for reading this.