Travel Expenses for Liver Donation

On January 9, 2023, my sister-in-law, RayAnn Smith-Jarvis will be traveling to New York to make a living donor liver donation to Jamie Buckley, who many of us in the community know and love. As a daycare provider of many years, Jamie has helped many of us, myself included, when we needed someone to care for our children.

In March of 2021, Jamie was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer, meaning the cancer had spread from its original site to several places in Jamie’s liver, a diagnosis carrying with it a less than 10% chance of surviving more than two years.

Jamie, however, is a fighter.

Jamie had already gone through so much in her fight against cancer - surgery to remove the tumor as well as intensive and maintenance chemotherapy - when her family found out about a program based out of New York through which Jamie could receive a liver transplant from a living donor. With this procedure, over 80% of patients survive 5 years or more after diagnosis. Thankfully, Jamie was approved as a transplant candidate, and she and her family began their search for a donor.

My sister-in-law was one of the many of us who received childcare help from Jamie, who cared for my nephew Brenden as he was growing up and while RayAnn worked. She applied to be Jamie’s liver donor and was approved in October of this year, giving Jamie a donor and a chance for more time with her family, including her beloved grandchildren.

It is, in my opinion, such a brave and selfless act to give a literal part of yourself for someone else. It makes me incredibly proud of RayAnn, honestly, and I am more than happy to attempt to support her in this small way by putting together this GoFundMe to help cover the costs of her trip to New York to make this donation to Jamie. RayAnn’s mom, Sherry, my mother-in-law, will be accompanying her on the trip to New York, where they will be staying for a minimum of 24 days, but possibly a month or more, while RayAnn recovers after the surgery. Any amount that you are able to contribute will help cover their expenses while they are there. In advance, we very sincerely thank each and every one of you for your support in making this trip a little easier for RayAnn to fund. From the very bottom of all our hearts - thank you!