Help Meagan Beat Cancer

Hello everyone, my name is Kristen and I want you to meet my best friend, Meagan. Some of you may know her from seeing her around the area, most of you recognize her for being an awesome shift supervisor at Starbucks Piper Glen (and you’ve probably tasted her awesome cappuccinos, too), but I know Meagan, because she’s my fantastically wonderful, GMO hating, nature loving best friend. Meagan is just about the toughest person I know, even though life has been far from fair on her. She’s the type of person that wouldn’t ask you for a scrap of food, even if she was starving (she calls it pride, I call it being stubborn), but if you asked her for food when she was starving, she would give you everything she had. I’ve never met someone so selfless, who is willing to do anything she can to make sure her friends and family are safe and secure. But if the world was crashing down around her, she wouldn’t complain to a single soul and you would never know, because she’d have the most beautiful smile on her face.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when Meagan called me up three days before her twenty third birthday and in an uplifting voice, told me that the tumor in her knee was cancerous. When I started to cry, she immediately told me everything would be fine and that there was nothing to worry about, even though I knew that her world was indeed crashing down around her. She came to work that Sunday, on her birthday, knowing that she had cancer, and still served coffee with a giant smile on her face, kept everyone laughing, and not once complained.

Meagan has osteosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer (less than 20,000 people a year receive this diagnosis). In order to remove the cancer, they need to take out a part of her femur, that the cancer has latched onto. They will then take a bone from a donor and shape it, in order to fit into her leg. Her surgery is June 7th and she will be out of work until July 19th. Meagan’s bone will not completely heal for one year and she will most likely have to go to physical therapy. The doctors will not know if she needs chemotherapy, until they have sent the tumor and femur slice to the pathologists. Meagan’s insurance only covers 70% of her hospital bills, so the rest is on her. This is not including the various other bills she will have to pay, while she is on medical leave.


I knew Meagan was in a bad place when I talked to her about starting a GoFundMe. It took a lot of convincing---she didn’t want people to feel sorry for her and she didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. After much discussion and telling her that she is so incredibly loved, not only by her friends and family, but by the whole community and that people would do anything to help her, did she finally agreed to let me start this for her. And I’m sure she’s going to still feel incredibly guilty, asking people for anything, so that’s why I’m going to do it for her. So please, friends, family, Starbucks, Piper Glen community, and anyone who is able, please help my best friend recover swiftly and beat this cancer, once and for all. Cancer is an awful disease that all too many have been diagnosed with and affected by. No one at twenty three, fifty, or even a hundred years old should ever have to deal with that kind of burden, so lets make it a little easier on her. We love you, Meagan---you’re not going to fight this alone.