Mother of 4 Needs Help Battling Cancer
Donation protected
Krista Jentzsch is a wife and mother of four beautiful children, ranging in age from a 9-year-old son to a 21-year-old daughter. She’s currently in the hospital fighting for her life and battling Mantle Cell Lymphoma, a rare and aggressive type of non-Hodgkin Lymphoma blood cancer. She was admitted to the hospital in serious condition on Nov. 24 and will be kept there for the next several months while the doctors work to save her life. While she fights with all she’s got, supported by her family, we still need your help!
As her two eldest daughters, we took it upon ourselves to request your help. Mom just completed five straight days of chemotherapy and this will significantly alter our lives. She is the foundation of our family that keeps a marriage and four kids rocking. And now she needs your help getting her over this difficult time in our family’s history. She and Dad just moved into a modest house a year ago, and their future is now very uncertain. Conservatively, we expect the total expense to the family to be about $50,000, with ER bills, deductibles, medications, the ambulance, co-pays, related travel expenses (our local hospital won’t be able to handle the bone marrow transplant), and more.
Who is Krista?
It’s funny how a crisis like this brings out details in a life that we, as her daughters, never fully understood. While talking to our grandparents, they shared a shocking story (that we’d never heard) that really helps put Mom into perspective:
“One winter, when Krista was 6, she was walking to school and found a kitten frozen in the snow. Not caring that she would be late for school, she picked it up and rushed back home. Thinking that the kitten only needed to be warmed up to bring it back to life, she ran into the house, tracking snow all the way. She went to the one place she knew was good at warming things up: the microwave…
Grandma intervened.”
While naive, this story exemplifies Mom’s heart, love, and devotion that she has carried throughout her life, which we’ve experienced first-hand. That’s Mom.
From Military Service to Raising Kids
We also learned that her devotion to helping and serving continued right out of high school as she immediately joined the US Air Force, following in the footsteps of her dad’s military service in the Navy. Proudly devoting herself to her country, she volunteered to become an Air Force Security Police Officer. Where she served proudly for a few years.
Then along came two little girls (us!). Before too long, she was a single mom, out of the Air Force, and struggling to provide. But she never hesitated to help anyone she met who was less fortunate. When we out-grew clothes, or quit using our toys for a while, she gave them to others in need, since she knew what it felt like to not afford things.
After a few years, she remarried. This helped stabilize things for us, and eventually our family grew again. First another sister, then a baby boy (the only son)—who have grown into adorable little kids! Through it all, she still kept the trunk of her car filled with things to give to friends or strangers at a moments notice. To this day, years later, Mom has made some of her most steadfast friends this way.
A Surprising Diagnosis
With us kids spanning from high school to nearing kindergarten, Mom would take us to soccer practice, dance lessons, and high school events. But she would unexpectedly grow so tired that she could barely make it through the day without a nap, often for days on end.
In a chance blood draw, she discovered that her white blood cell count was well above a healthy woman’s. Hoping for a simple explanation, the doctor came back with a diagnosis: Mantle Cell Lymphoma.
Everyone was shocked, including the doctor. It’s a rare form of blood cancer that rarely impacts women of her age. All doctors could do is rely on her relative youth in the hope that the disease does not progress as fast as it typically does. Not a bright prognosis, frankly.
And for a few years, they managed it well enough, with her alternating between feeling well and then terrible. But she continued to help out, being our brother’s Cub Scout pack leader, supporting our sister’s dance ambitions, and getting a job that pushed her professionally and intellectually. She was always going above and beyond, never wanting to let anyone down.
(We’ve added more about Mantle Cell Lymphoma below for those interested.)
A Time of Celebration Turns Scary
Looking forward to the upcoming holiday season, Mom invited our grandparents from across the country for Thanksgiving. Just before they arrived, things started to turn. The first signs were non-stop sweating, followed by vomit-inducing migraines, and uncomfortable stomach pain. She thought it was just another sickness that she had become familiar with, and was going to push through it. But it didn’t pass.
Dad took her to the local ER a few days after Thanksgiving. They had discovered that her spleen had doubled in size and was in jeopardy of bursting; her kidneys were verging on failure. The local hospital knew instantly that they couldn’t give her the care she needed, so they themselves called 911 to get her rushed to a larger regional one. It took two days to stabilize her condition. She was then placed on daily dialysis to keep the kidneys from shutting down.
First Aggressive Chemo. Then Bone Marrow Transplant.
Our mom has started her first of many rounds of aggressive chemotherapy. Each round consists of five straight days of different chemo drug cocktails, followed by 2-3 weeks of recovery. Each round is so taxing on her body that she has to stay in the hospital the entire time. She will be there through Christmas, and could possibly miss three of our birthdays over the next couple of months.
If the treatment can get the cancer into remission, she will then need a bone marrow transplant. So we are in the beginning stages of searching for a donor match.
(For those interested, we added a little more on bone marrow transplants below.)
From Kittens to Chemo
Krista has devoted her life to giving and helping others. From a frozen kitten, to military service, to countless others in need of support. She is still raising us kids. It’s our hope that with this fund, we can give her back what she has so willingly given to others — help.
Our mom needs your help to give her a chance to see all her ‘babies’ graduate from high school and get our college degrees. The medical bills have already started, and we know will only grow for the foreseeable future. It will impact our entire family…we just don’t have the ability to carry the burden alone. Will you help us, please?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATION. EVERY DOLLAR HELPS.
For Those Interested In The Nitty-Gritty
Here are some things that we learned throughout this process, that we thought some people might be interested in learning. We’re not experts, but figured we’d share a couple small bits of information that we learned while dealing with Mom’s illness.
Mantle Cell Lymphoma: It is a rare form of blood cancer that uses the bodies immune system against itself. Typically seen in older men in their 60s, it produces abnormal white blood cells that ultimately begin to block the spleen and causes the body’s lymph nodes to swell. Mantle Cell Lymphoma is exceptionally rare in someone so young, particularly a woman, which is why doctors were so shocked to see that she had it.
Bone marrow transplants: For those that don’t know, bone marrow is what makes your blood and thus the cancerous white blood cells. So the only potential cure is to replace the bone marrow. The trick is finding a match… While she has two brothers that have the highest potential to be one, it’s no guarantee. Complete strangers are regularly found to be matches.
As a result, we are really asking for two things, to help us financially and to join BeTheMatch . It’s our only hope to give us more precious years with Mom. Even if you are not a match for Krista, maybe you could help save the life of someone else.
As her two eldest daughters, we took it upon ourselves to request your help. Mom just completed five straight days of chemotherapy and this will significantly alter our lives. She is the foundation of our family that keeps a marriage and four kids rocking. And now she needs your help getting her over this difficult time in our family’s history. She and Dad just moved into a modest house a year ago, and their future is now very uncertain. Conservatively, we expect the total expense to the family to be about $50,000, with ER bills, deductibles, medications, the ambulance, co-pays, related travel expenses (our local hospital won’t be able to handle the bone marrow transplant), and more.
Who is Krista?
It’s funny how a crisis like this brings out details in a life that we, as her daughters, never fully understood. While talking to our grandparents, they shared a shocking story (that we’d never heard) that really helps put Mom into perspective:
“One winter, when Krista was 6, she was walking to school and found a kitten frozen in the snow. Not caring that she would be late for school, she picked it up and rushed back home. Thinking that the kitten only needed to be warmed up to bring it back to life, she ran into the house, tracking snow all the way. She went to the one place she knew was good at warming things up: the microwave…
Grandma intervened.”
While naive, this story exemplifies Mom’s heart, love, and devotion that she has carried throughout her life, which we’ve experienced first-hand. That’s Mom.
From Military Service to Raising Kids
We also learned that her devotion to helping and serving continued right out of high school as she immediately joined the US Air Force, following in the footsteps of her dad’s military service in the Navy. Proudly devoting herself to her country, she volunteered to become an Air Force Security Police Officer. Where she served proudly for a few years.
Then along came two little girls (us!). Before too long, she was a single mom, out of the Air Force, and struggling to provide. But she never hesitated to help anyone she met who was less fortunate. When we out-grew clothes, or quit using our toys for a while, she gave them to others in need, since she knew what it felt like to not afford things.
After a few years, she remarried. This helped stabilize things for us, and eventually our family grew again. First another sister, then a baby boy (the only son)—who have grown into adorable little kids! Through it all, she still kept the trunk of her car filled with things to give to friends or strangers at a moments notice. To this day, years later, Mom has made some of her most steadfast friends this way.
A Surprising Diagnosis
With us kids spanning from high school to nearing kindergarten, Mom would take us to soccer practice, dance lessons, and high school events. But she would unexpectedly grow so tired that she could barely make it through the day without a nap, often for days on end.
In a chance blood draw, she discovered that her white blood cell count was well above a healthy woman’s. Hoping for a simple explanation, the doctor came back with a diagnosis: Mantle Cell Lymphoma.
Everyone was shocked, including the doctor. It’s a rare form of blood cancer that rarely impacts women of her age. All doctors could do is rely on her relative youth in the hope that the disease does not progress as fast as it typically does. Not a bright prognosis, frankly.
And for a few years, they managed it well enough, with her alternating between feeling well and then terrible. But she continued to help out, being our brother’s Cub Scout pack leader, supporting our sister’s dance ambitions, and getting a job that pushed her professionally and intellectually. She was always going above and beyond, never wanting to let anyone down.
(We’ve added more about Mantle Cell Lymphoma below for those interested.)
A Time of Celebration Turns Scary
Looking forward to the upcoming holiday season, Mom invited our grandparents from across the country for Thanksgiving. Just before they arrived, things started to turn. The first signs were non-stop sweating, followed by vomit-inducing migraines, and uncomfortable stomach pain. She thought it was just another sickness that she had become familiar with, and was going to push through it. But it didn’t pass.
Dad took her to the local ER a few days after Thanksgiving. They had discovered that her spleen had doubled in size and was in jeopardy of bursting; her kidneys were verging on failure. The local hospital knew instantly that they couldn’t give her the care she needed, so they themselves called 911 to get her rushed to a larger regional one. It took two days to stabilize her condition. She was then placed on daily dialysis to keep the kidneys from shutting down.
First Aggressive Chemo. Then Bone Marrow Transplant.
Our mom has started her first of many rounds of aggressive chemotherapy. Each round consists of five straight days of different chemo drug cocktails, followed by 2-3 weeks of recovery. Each round is so taxing on her body that she has to stay in the hospital the entire time. She will be there through Christmas, and could possibly miss three of our birthdays over the next couple of months.
If the treatment can get the cancer into remission, she will then need a bone marrow transplant. So we are in the beginning stages of searching for a donor match.
(For those interested, we added a little more on bone marrow transplants below.)
From Kittens to Chemo
Krista has devoted her life to giving and helping others. From a frozen kitten, to military service, to countless others in need of support. She is still raising us kids. It’s our hope that with this fund, we can give her back what she has so willingly given to others — help.
Our mom needs your help to give her a chance to see all her ‘babies’ graduate from high school and get our college degrees. The medical bills have already started, and we know will only grow for the foreseeable future. It will impact our entire family…we just don’t have the ability to carry the burden alone. Will you help us, please?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATION. EVERY DOLLAR HELPS.
For Those Interested In The Nitty-Gritty
Here are some things that we learned throughout this process, that we thought some people might be interested in learning. We’re not experts, but figured we’d share a couple small bits of information that we learned while dealing with Mom’s illness.
Mantle Cell Lymphoma: It is a rare form of blood cancer that uses the bodies immune system against itself. Typically seen in older men in their 60s, it produces abnormal white blood cells that ultimately begin to block the spleen and causes the body’s lymph nodes to swell. Mantle Cell Lymphoma is exceptionally rare in someone so young, particularly a woman, which is why doctors were so shocked to see that she had it.
Bone marrow transplants: For those that don’t know, bone marrow is what makes your blood and thus the cancerous white blood cells. So the only potential cure is to replace the bone marrow. The trick is finding a match… While she has two brothers that have the highest potential to be one, it’s no guarantee. Complete strangers are regularly found to be matches.
As a result, we are really asking for two things, to help us financially and to join BeTheMatch . It’s our only hope to give us more precious years with Mom. Even if you are not a match for Krista, maybe you could help save the life of someone else.
Organizer
Krista Park-Jentzsch
Organizer
Jupiter, FL
