Terri's Cancer Relief Fund
Donation protected
On Saturday, September 1st, 2018 Terri went to a concert with her mom (Ringo!). She had been noticing her eyes having trouble with blurry vision but that night, as she drove home she could barely see at all. Just the night before, she had suffered a persistent nose bleed off and on for over 16 hours.
Sunday evening, she finally decided it was time to go to the ER. As she explained her symptoms to the nurses and doctors, she just assumed it was a bad sinus infection! The doctor did a full workup: chest x-ray, EKG, labwork, and a head CT Scan. Not long after, the doctor came in with the results. We were shocked to hear about a "concerning" mass they found on the scan of her brain. So they sent her that night to Hillcrest.
Monday morning, more shocking news. Her blood counts were extremely low. She was going to need a transfusion. Again, she equated this to the 16 hr nosebleed from Friday! Labs were repeated several times. Finally, the doctor Sat down to give her the really bad news. She has a very aggressive form of leukemia, called Acute Lymohobkastic Leukemia (ALL) and will need immediate treatment. You could just imagine the room spinning at this point....How? Why? What does this mean? This was supposed to be a simple sinus infection! You must have me mixed up with someone else?? Am I dreaming? Is this a terrible nightmare that I will wake up and be fine?! But no, bone marrow biopsy confirmed it.
Now we are at St John's hospital. More blood transfusions, waiting on chromosome analysis of bone marrow to determine course of action. Results revealed more bad news, the results showed that traditional chemo was the best course of action. The next step, placing the port for access of chemo.
A release home was a bit of good news but that lasted not even 8 hours. She had to go back to ER because the IV she had in was swollen, very painful, and possibly infected. She was transported right back to st John's.
Terri was in the hospitals for 2 weeks, received many, many units of blood and platelets, a CT scan, 2 ambulance transport rides, a biopsy, a port placement, several chemo drugs and pills. At the oncologist, as outpatient, she had to come in every day for the first week. More labs and a shot to help her white blood cell count improve. This shot costs $4,000 each and she had it every day...
Now, as I type this, Terri is going back into the hospital in the morning for her 2nd round. Many leukemia patients have been found to have leukemia cells in the spinal fluid. The chemo cannot get through what is called the Blood Brain Barrier, they have to administer chemo through a port in the head. Terri will have the port placed this morning, as well as a 2nd bone marrow biopsy. She will be in ICU the first night and then transferred to a regular room for the next treatment phase for 3-4 days. Then she will repeat the daily visits to the doctor's office. This will be her life for the next several months, possibly years.
Terri is on a very limited fixed income with Medicare insurance, which as we all know doesn't cover everything. All money collected will go towards her medical expenses, prescriptions, hospital bills, oncology bills.
One of the biggest items on her wish list is to be able to move back into her master bedroom upstairs. In order to do this, we will need to install the stairlift and finish the master bathroom, which was gutted after the house fire several years ago. It is a very big project but could be done fairly quickly with adequate funds. If you would like your donation to go towards this, please specify in the comments section of your donation "bucket list".
We are all rooting and praying for Terri, she is fighting this like a true pro! Hundreds of people are praying and agreeing that she will beat this! Cancer sucks!
Sunday evening, she finally decided it was time to go to the ER. As she explained her symptoms to the nurses and doctors, she just assumed it was a bad sinus infection! The doctor did a full workup: chest x-ray, EKG, labwork, and a head CT Scan. Not long after, the doctor came in with the results. We were shocked to hear about a "concerning" mass they found on the scan of her brain. So they sent her that night to Hillcrest.
Monday morning, more shocking news. Her blood counts were extremely low. She was going to need a transfusion. Again, she equated this to the 16 hr nosebleed from Friday! Labs were repeated several times. Finally, the doctor Sat down to give her the really bad news. She has a very aggressive form of leukemia, called Acute Lymohobkastic Leukemia (ALL) and will need immediate treatment. You could just imagine the room spinning at this point....How? Why? What does this mean? This was supposed to be a simple sinus infection! You must have me mixed up with someone else?? Am I dreaming? Is this a terrible nightmare that I will wake up and be fine?! But no, bone marrow biopsy confirmed it.
Now we are at St John's hospital. More blood transfusions, waiting on chromosome analysis of bone marrow to determine course of action. Results revealed more bad news, the results showed that traditional chemo was the best course of action. The next step, placing the port for access of chemo.
A release home was a bit of good news but that lasted not even 8 hours. She had to go back to ER because the IV she had in was swollen, very painful, and possibly infected. She was transported right back to st John's.
Terri was in the hospitals for 2 weeks, received many, many units of blood and platelets, a CT scan, 2 ambulance transport rides, a biopsy, a port placement, several chemo drugs and pills. At the oncologist, as outpatient, she had to come in every day for the first week. More labs and a shot to help her white blood cell count improve. This shot costs $4,000 each and she had it every day...
Now, as I type this, Terri is going back into the hospital in the morning for her 2nd round. Many leukemia patients have been found to have leukemia cells in the spinal fluid. The chemo cannot get through what is called the Blood Brain Barrier, they have to administer chemo through a port in the head. Terri will have the port placed this morning, as well as a 2nd bone marrow biopsy. She will be in ICU the first night and then transferred to a regular room for the next treatment phase for 3-4 days. Then she will repeat the daily visits to the doctor's office. This will be her life for the next several months, possibly years.
Terri is on a very limited fixed income with Medicare insurance, which as we all know doesn't cover everything. All money collected will go towards her medical expenses, prescriptions, hospital bills, oncology bills.
One of the biggest items on her wish list is to be able to move back into her master bedroom upstairs. In order to do this, we will need to install the stairlift and finish the master bathroom, which was gutted after the house fire several years ago. It is a very big project but could be done fairly quickly with adequate funds. If you would like your donation to go towards this, please specify in the comments section of your donation "bucket list".
We are all rooting and praying for Terri, she is fighting this like a true pro! Hundreds of people are praying and agreeing that she will beat this! Cancer sucks!
Organizer
Melissa Casey Schulte
Organizer
Tulsa, OK
