Main fundraiser photo

Getting Julie Home

I am posting this fundraising campaign for Julie and Cory Crawford, so that they can focus on getting home to Adam and the rest of their family. We need to get Julie home.

Julie Crawford - 34 Years Old

The Crawfords and their story:

"For those that may not know, my wife, Julie Crawford has fought an extended battle with Melanoma for the last 5 1/2 years.  Julie is the love of my life, my high school sweetheart, and mother to our amazing son Adam who will turn 7 in March.

Julie and I have been together for longer than we have been apart, nearly 20 years.  We never thought, ever, that we would face something like Cancer in our young lives.  The world thought differently and in Nov of 2010 at the age of 29 Julie was diagnosed with  stage 3+ Melanoma.

 After having what was assumed by her Doctors to be a harmless scar removed from her right arm, the diagnosis was delivered.  Nothing rocks a young families world like hearing some of the things we heard during that period.  Over the following weeks/months Julie went through several invasive surgeries as they first removed the rest of the major tumour and we then learned that cancer had also spread to the lymph nodes.  In all there would be 5 significant surgeries (along with a number of biopsies) performed in the area over the next three years as the Cancer continued to reoccur.  The cancer would eventually be determined as inoperable due to it's growing proximity to major nerves in Sept of 2013.

In addition to surgeries over the years Julie has been through a number of drug and non drug treatments.  She has been through Radiation as well as 5 separate drug treatments, a cumulative effect of 145 weeks of being enrolled in scheduled treatments along with countless IVs, cat scans, blood work, pet scans, the list goes on.

Through all of this Julie has showed unbelievable bravery and strength.  It is a rare occasion that she doesn't still have a smile on her face despite everything she has been through, and it has not been an easy road.  This experience has formed and ruined relationships, has brought us closer to some and pushed us further from others.  There have been times of more support than we needed and times where there never seemed to be enough.  We have been tested as a family but we have persevered.

The final phase of Julie's treatment would be what is called an adoptive T-cell transfer.  Unfortunately there is only one place in Canada where this treatment is possible and that is the Princess Margret Hospital in Toronto Ontario.  After many months of preparation, multiple trips to Toronto for surgeries and other things, Julie began her treatment on Jan 14th.

The treatment was to have taken 2 weeks plus 3 or 4 days but, as I write this on Feb 29th, we are still in the Princess Margaret Hospital.  Julie's journey has been anything short of easy.

In her time here Julie has been in Intensive care on two separate occasions, both times intubated for respiratory failure.  On top of the respiratory failure she has required multiple emergency interventions due to drug reactions that have caused her to go into distress.

Sadly, after all of this we learned that the treatments had not been successful.

To the point of the matter:

Julie and Cory along with their son Adam have been on a long road together so far, with so many up's and downs that road has been more of a rollercoaster than anything, but throughout the years they still remained their amazing selves and such good friends rarely asking for anything. 

Julie's cancer is no longer treatable.  Even if there were still treatment options available (which there are not) her respiratory status is too tenuous for additional interventions make sense due to the burden of the disease in her lungs.  It is impossible for the doctors to say how long Julie may have left, but they don't expect that it will be long.

This fundraiser is to get Julie home, to get her back to her son, and to make the most of whatever time is left regardless of the fact that she will remain in hospital.

We will be transporting Julie by Medivac as soon as possible, the costs for this are immense (35-40 thousand dollars).  There will also be a number of hospital related costs and end of life costs to be covered.

Should this fundraiser bring in more than the Medivac and final costs are, any excess will be put into an RESP (education fund) for our son Adam in Julie's honour.   

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts,

Cory and Julie Crawford

Donations 

  • Anonymous
    • $100 
    • 8 yrs

Organizer

Karran Finlay-Hamilton
Organizer
Edmonton, AB

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