My brother and I are posting this on behalf of my Mom, Dr. Kate Kneeland. We would like to tell her story.

Mom raised us working part-time at the post office. When I graduated from high school, she found out she could get financial help for college, so she wasted no time enrolling at the local community college. She told my grandparents that she was not stopping until she had a PhD.

Halfway through her second year, my grandpa passed away from lung cancer. But Mom kept at it. She transferred to a 4-year college, majoring in Biology. In her second year, she lost her mom to Lymphoma. Again she didn’t stop. After working for 4 years in Seattle, she was accepted at the University of Nebraska. She packed up her little car and headed to the Midwest, where she worked on a PhD in Entomology.

Mom got her PhD in 2011, stayed another year to do a post-doc, then went home to Washington State. She applied for jobs in her field for 3 years, with no luck, working at minimum wage jobs to get by. Finally, in June of 2015, she was offered a job with the State of Nebraska.

She packed up the same little car and headed back to Lincoln. At least she was closer to me, but 2000 miles from most of the family. Everything was going fine, until she started feeling kind of sick. After first being told she had an ulcer, she was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, cancer of the liver system. It was Thanksgiving weekend.

Mom has a very positive attitude and is determined to beat this. But she has not been able to work for over a month now, and needs help paying rent, bills, and buying necessities. She also had just about every test there is, and I am sure the insurance will not pay much of it. We are asking for financial help from those who can, and prayers and positive energy from those who can’t.

Thank you for your support.
Aaron and Cliff Bortoletto