The Wykes Family Cancer Fund

UPDATE (10-18-17):

Last week, Becki and her doctors decided to stop all treatments for her cancer, other than medications to manage her pain and keep her as comfortable as possible.  

Yesterday, Becki was discharged from Fletcher Allen Hospital and will now remain in Heritage Commons Nursing Home in Ticonderoga, NY, where she will receive comfort care with support from the amazing nursing home staff and her loving family.  She is on the Adirondack Lakes side, room 223 and would love visitors, calls, cards, and whatever else people are able to do to remind her how much she is loved and how many people are thinking of her.

Please keep her and her family in your daily thoughts, prayers, and best wishes. And please know how grateful she is - how grateful we all are - for your love and support during what has been, and continues to be, a difficult and painful journey.

UPDATE (10-11-17)

It has been almost a year since we launched this campaign, and so much has changed since then. In some ways, it has been an endless rollercoaster of so many doctors, so many procedures, and so many unknowns. However, it has also been a year filled with so many prayers, so much love, and such incredible teamwork, as people have come together to fight Becki's cancer with her.

Although Becki will no longer be going to Sloan Kettering in New York City as we'd originally thought, I am hoping that everyone who reads this will continue to donate whatever possible to help support Becki's family over the coming months. All donations to this campaign wil be used to cover unexpected costs associated with family travel and other arrangements. Funds will not be used for Becki personally, as her medical and daily expenses are covered.

BACKGROUND:

In 1989, my cousin Becki Wykes was in an automobile accident.  I was 16 years old at the time, and I will never forget the shakiness in my mother's voice when she took the phone call informing us that someone driving down New York Interstate-87 early that morning had seen Becki dragging herself, on her stomach, across the highway after having been thrown through the small back window of her pick-up truck. 

Becki was just 24 at the time, and though her prognosis was grim, she was determined  to heal and recover, despite the odds and the countless obstacles she would have to overcome.  But as the years passed and as Becki continued to face setback after setback, undergoing more than 100  operations, procedures, and surgeries, denial turned into acceptance as we all understood that Becki would never walk again. Instead, her life would become an assembly line of hospitals and nursing homes and levels of pain and illness that often make me wonder how she maintained such determination while she continued to try and to strive and persevere through it all.


Once it became clear that Becki would require special living accommodations for the rest of her life, her family invested the money necessary to build a handicapped addition and wheelchair ramp onto the side of their house so that she could remain at home.  However, the cost of those modifications was so great that it left her parents financially depleted, at which point they were forced to rely solely on social services for the medical care and daily living expenses Becki required.  

Over the years, they have managed, with sporadic home nursing care and services they have had to fight for every step of the way.  Still, life finally settled into a routine that was workable and Becki's health was, for the most part, as stable as could possiby be expected, given all of her physical challenges.


Then, in November of 2016, Becki was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  Even though she'd been experiencing abdominal pain for several months, the news was a heartbreaking shock for her and for us, especially after all she'd already been through, and all that such a diagnosis suggested for an otherwise healthy person, much less someone in her medical situation. The doctors at Fletcher Allen hospital who performed her biopsy and diagnosed her recommended an intense course of chemotherapy, with the goal of shrinking the tumor enough to remove it surgically. However, we were recently told that, even with chemotherapy, the surgeon would not operate on her because the tumor had infiltrated a main artery and he felt that the surgery was simply too risky for him to attempt.

After several months of chemo and treatment for her chronic osteomyelitis, Becki has now been placed on comfort care. She is currently inpatient at Fletcher Allen in Vermont, in an attempt to regulate her medications so that she can be discharged and better able to manage her pain. Although we are not yet sure when she will leave Fletcher Allen, we will certainly update everyone as soon as we know more, because your prayers and cards and ongoing messages of love and support continue to mean the world to Becki, and will be so important to her when she leaves the hospital.


Over the years, I have been inspired by Becki's ability to handle every situation thrown at her with grace, perseverence, and humor.  I don't know how I would handle such difficulty every day, and I admire the strength it takes for her to  keep fighting for her health and her life. I admire her parents and her sister for how hard they work and fight to see to it that Becki's needs are met as much as they can be, and that she feels as loved and cared for as possible.

Anything you are able to donate is greatly appreciated. I am also requesting that you share this campaign information on your social media sites as well, and, if possible, that you send it on to all of your personal and professional networks and ask them to do the same!!


 With heartfelt gratitude,
Heather