Supporting Carrie through her battle with cancer

I met Carrie when she was 12 and I was 16. At the time, I worked and became the best of friends with her big sister, Brandi, then later I really got to know her when I started dating their big brother, Tom. We always had so much fun together. As a little girl, she sparkled with sunshine, it seemed. So sweet and bubbly and adorable. Not much has changed in that regard. She’s a bit feistier now, having been brought up as the youngest and littlest Dufford with three older brothers and two older sisters. She’s tough to say the least. She is a wonderful mom to her two kids and is a loving grandmother (though I don’t know how she can be a grandmother when, to me, she still looks 20).

 

Carrie has faced a lot of challenges in her life, having been diagnosed with synovial sarcoma (a cancer in her leg) 15 years ago. She fought and won that hard battle but she’s had more than her fair share of medical problems since. It’s with a great sadness that I’m sharing with you that cancer has reared its ugly head again in her body. Only this time it came back meaner and stronger than she will have strength for. She has been diagnosed with terminal, Stage 4 cancer. It has invaded her lungs and belly with many large tumors.

 

She’s hurting and suffering and would like to spend all the time she has left with her children and grandchildren in New York; however, she has now been hospitalized with a blood clot in her lung. Despite that, her family is rallying together to make her final wishes a reality. That being said, on behalf of Carrie’s family, I would like to request your support to help pay for expenses to move her from Virginia to New York, if that is possible for her at this point. If she’s not strong enough to travel, then her children will need help with travel expenses, time off work, etc. to go to Virginia to be with her. To name just a few, there will be moving and storage fees, medical expenses, and most sorrowfully, the family will have to pay for her impending funeral expenses.

 

Thank you in advance for your kindness and your prayers for Carrie and her family. They are greatly appreciated.