Roni Olson

Please Help Me Reach the Mayo Clinic Before Cancer and GVHD Takes My Life. I am writing this because I am running out of time, and I am out of options. My name is Roni. Most of you know me as a builder. Someone who worked with their hands, built a successful business from the ground up, and took pride in being self-reliant. Today, I am in a race for my life, and right now, I am losing. I moved to Hawaii healthy and strong with the intention of building my retirement dream. To do that, I gave up everything I had spent my lifetime working for. I sold my three bedroom home on 13 acres, my tractor, trailers, shop, and nearly all of my belongings. I arrived ready to work. For two years, I built a thriving business and saved $30,000 to finish building my home here. Then everything changed. One day I was working. The next, I couldn’t breathe. I was rushed to the hospital and given a blood transfusion. After weeks of testing, I was diagnosed with Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukemia (CMML). Within days, it turned aggressive. I was then diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) and told I had three days to live. I was med-evaced to Oahu for emergency chemotherapy and later flown to Seattle, where I underwent a life-saving bone marrow transplant. I survived, but survival came with a devastating cost. I developed chronic Graft-versus-Host Disease (cGVHD), a condition where my donor immune system attacks my own body. GVHD now affects my eyes, lungs, muscles, and soft tissue. Without proper treatment, it will spread to my organs and eventually kill me. Every day I remain without specialized care, my body is being permanently scarred from the inside out. That damage is irreversible. Despite being weak and sick after the transplant, I tried to finish the house myself. I started from the ground up by myself, because I had no other choice. But the disease moved faster than I could. The $30,000 I had saved for materials was consumed by medical costs, and I was forced to stop before the house could be completed. I am now left in an unfinished, barely habitable home. I have exhausted all medical options in Hawaii. My oncologist has told me there is nothing more he can do for me here. There is not a single facility in the entire state with the specialists or equipment required to treat my particular form of cGVHD. My only real chance to stop the progression of this disease is to relocate to Arizona, where I can receive specialized care at The Mayo Clinic. But I am trapped, both physically and financially. I am not asking for an upgraded home or a better life. I am accepting a significant loss. I went from owning a three bedroom home with acreage, a vacation retreat style retirement home, to hoping for a small, modest, safe place to live in Arizona. I need this house to be brought to a point that is just enough to sell so I can relocate before my condition worsens. I need at least $7,000 to cover:    •   Shipping my car    •   Moving my household items    •   A one-way flight to Arizona I have already accumulated over $10,000 in credit card debt trying to make this move possible. If I cannot get a reasonable value out of this house, I will arrive in Arizona without the ability to secure housing. If I sell and cannot use the money to purchase a home within 90 days, I risk losing all of my medical benefits, which could strip me of every bit of security I have left while fighting GVHD. Since I am permanently disabled. I cannot feasibly rebuild my life again from nothing. I am literally trading my life’s work to save my life. For those who are local, I am offering what I still have, my professional tools (Makita, DeWalt, Milwaukee, and others) in exchange for labor to help make this house safe and sellable. I need help with the completion of the siding, caulking, painting, yard work, tiling, and general cleanup so this looks like a home and not a construction hazard. I am asking for help because I no longer have the physical strength or stamina to do this alone. If you are not in a position to donate, please understand this: sharing this page is just as important as giving money,  possibly more important. I do not have a large social network. I don’t have a wide circle of friends or followers who can carry this on their own. The only way I reach the people who can help is if this story travels beyond me. Every share creates another chance for this page to reach someone who can donate, offer labor, provide resources, or connect me to help I can’t access on my own. This is how bridges get built when someone runs out of road. Please don’t underestimate how powerful this is. Ten seconds of your time, one click to share can put this in front of hundreds of people I will never be able to reach myself. That reach could be the difference between me getting to the Mayo Clinic in time or losing that chance altogether. If you can’t give financially, sharing this link is the single most meaningful thing you can do for me right now. It is how my network gets built. It is how this effort succeeds. Please help this story travel farther than I can. Please help me build this bridge to the Mayo Clinic. I need to get there before this house becomes the place where I die. Whether you can donate toward the $7,000 relocation cost, give a day of labor, or share this page, you are directly helping me survive. Even a small $5.00 donation can help. If everyone could donate even the smallest amount, it’s one step closer for me to get the treatment I need to survive.  Please share this individually to each of your friends. It will help me more than you can imagine. Thank you for listening to my story and for whatever support you can manage. I appreciate your time, your kindness, and your willingness to pass this along. Kind and humble regards, Roni Olson